Lies and Appearances
by Noxiatrics
Summary: There is no such thing as comfort, small and desperate as the Brotherhood is. Ezio has accepted his fate as its last hope, the machine that will pry freedom from the Templars' hands- no matter the cost. When pushed past the breaking point Ezio is convinced he does not have, Leonardo will be there to remind him that he is allowed to be human, too. Occurs during the events of ACII.
1. Chapter 1

There was a fairly shallow, yet gnarled slice snaking from the centre of Ezio's lower back up to just underneath his right shoulder blade. The cut was uneven, and it slithered all across his lower back horizontally until it shot upward and inward just before reaching his side. It was not a wound received with dignity, nor bravery, nor valor; no, it was a wound of sheer carelessness. Ezio had been scouting around atop the Basilica di San Marco on word of some thieves finding the entrance to the tomb of Amunet. The Basilica was never particularly inviting, both in the density of guards and in the difficulty of navigating the roof. Where some sections were long, flat, and easy, the next corner would present iron gates five metres high. As it were, Ezio was spotted perching in the shadow of one of the many statues of angels decorating the peak of the Basilica's tall entrance. He was only mildly concerned, if that, when he caught the guards' cries of accusation. Though the dusk covered him adequately, the guards had arrows, and the search could be resumed another time. The assassin leapt from the angel's feet, and angled his own against the needlessly steep roof so that he would slide down. He would push off the incline just before its end, grab one prong of the ornate metal crucifix, use the force to swing himself around and down to a lower roof section of the Basilica, then leap into the cart of hay memorized earlier in the day.

But the crucifix was too ornate: below the primary prongs of the crucifix there were several smaller sets more, and when Ezio swung himself around the fixture, one of the metal barbs cleaved into his lower back. He jolted from the blunt pain, and ended the swing with more of a startled drop than a graceful leap. The barb was still at his back when he dropped, causing it to rip up and under Ezio' belt and the greater part of his cuirass. The force of the drop had broken the barb off and lodged it inside the armour. It was a shameful thing, really, at his level of experience, so Ezio disallowed himself to even pretend it hurt. 

Prideful or not, the pain was overwhelming. His balance hampered by the wrenching of the barb in every movement, Ezio's footfalls were anything but stealthy. He stumbled, trying to shift his weight in some direction that might lessen the carving of the barb, and as luck would have it he stumbled onto the sloped portion of the lower roof section he landed on. He cursed and waved his arms frantically in a pitiful attempt to regain balance, and in doing so sent massive bolts of pain into his back. The world tilted, for a moment, and Ezio could not recall the seconds between standing and falling. He tumbled down the roof tiles and dropped in a heavy, metallic slump onto the flat section of roof below. This was the lowest of the layered rooftops of the Basilica, outermost of the building's perimeter—another fall would greet the assassin with cobblestone. 

The guard who spotted him previously had no trouble tracking the sounds. He peered over from atop the tier Ezio fell from, and shouted his comrades to arms. The archers drew their bows. By some assassin's instinct Ezio's body reacted before he could properly hear. He sprang up from his small, bloody splat on the roof and dashed to the edge at an angle that just might be close enough to the haystack for a successful landing. Ezio did not hesitate. He put every effort into speed, only hoping to achieve enough momentum to carry him to safety. He leapt forward, and flew with arms outstretched for what seemed an inhuman distance, before beginning his descent—directly into the soft pile of hay. He truly did use every facet of the jump to ensure he landed where targeted, and as such left no thought for a proper landing. The Leap of Faith was malformed from the start, warped to maximize distance. The momentum drove the ending flip too harshly, and while Ezio landed in the cushion of hay, he landed directly on his left foot.

The cart churned and the board stricken by Ezio's foot collapsed on impact. Passers-by startled at the booming crack and creak of the cart, but fortunately went about their ways without choosing to alert the guard. Beneath the haystack, though, there were a thousand icy needles of pain rendering Ezio frozen and inert, hands clasping his left knee to the point that he absently thought he might snap the limb right off then and there. He could hear himself shrieking—even loud enough to drown out the intense ringing in his ears—yet in truth he made not a sound. He clenched his teeth with all the strength in his jaw and neck, knowing that in his current state, to alert the guard would be his end. Instead he began to draw his leg up slowly, ever so slowly, up and out of the new hole in the cart. He laid it in front of him, the lifeless thing it seemed, and screwed his eyes closed. There was blinding pain everywhere, coursing through his veins and contorting every muscle. Ezio tried to focus on his breathing. He didn't realize he'd been holding it.

The daylight was fading fast, and it was becoming more difficult to see inside the hay. Once he remembered how to exhale, Ezio squinted at his knee. It was too dark to see blood, but the silhouette looked normal- straight, nothing shooting out or bent grotesquely. The few spots of dim sunlight showed the area to be clean. He felt no wetness around the area, yet the limb still felt as though it had been crushed flat. He was almost grateful for the injury; he couldn't imagine what it would have felt like had he landed on his back as usual, and the pain in his leg proved a worthy distraction from the prior injury. He hadn't even heard the archers on top of the Basilica di San Marco call for a search below. He hadn't heard the seekers approach the cart.

Just as Ezio leaned in closer to inspect his knee, one of the seekers' long spears gashed into his right shoulder. The metal spaulder was hit first, preventing the stab from impaling him full-force, but nevertheless the spear slid off the spaulder and sank into the flesh underneath. Immediately Ezio arched his spine forward and released a chilling cry. The spearman almost toppled over in fright. In his surprise he tried to rip his spear out quickly, but the spear stuck, merely yanking the Auditore back with it. The multiplicity of gore accumulated in the last few minutes must have welled up inside Ezio, because be it from an unlocked survival state or some incomprehensible stage of pain, he reached up to his shoulder with lightning speed and tore the spear free.

The next thing he knew he was on top of the offending seeker, crouching over his broken, bloody form and pulling both hidden blades out from under the man's jaw. There were screams, calls, insults—Ezio glanced up to the others in the group of guards for only a moment, then dashed off like a mustang having just snapped its restraints.

Ezio threw down anyone in his path. Before, everything seemed congested and clouded by a thick fog of pain. Now everything was crisp and bright. Now there was no strategy. There was no stealth. There was only objective, and that meant escape, consumed by some primal drive for freedom and security. All sounds seemed to fade in and out in time with the ringing and rapid throbbing in Ezio's ears. He did not look back, nor was he running to any particular place. He simply ran, fast as he'd ever managed, and only one thing drew him from this blind trance: without warning, Ezio's left knee buckled and cracked rather audibly. He gasped sharply, the world rushed toward him, and he fell.

He saw only blackness for few seconds before his vision returned. Then the blackness started again, more slowly this time, creeping in from the periphery. He felt outside himself. He told himself to get up and run. But his arms were weak. He saw them shaking, hands planted on the ground beneath himself, lifting him gradually with much effort. The blood seemed to rush away from his head when he felt his heels against stone. He told himself to hide. Running felt impossible—his legs were shaking, too. Blankly Ezio glanced around. Things looked strikingly familiar, yet entirely foreign at the same time. He stared at a thin, nearby alleyway for almost ten seconds before realizing it as a hideout. By this time the guards had been lost far behind in the wake of their target's mad sprinting, so Ezio made his way to the shaded bench of the alley with a fairly obvious limp to his slow, heavy steps.

He reached out to the bench and let that hand guide the rest of his body onto the empty board. _I need to see a dotore_, Ezio thought, _my pains are becoming numb... Numbness! _At his recollection, he quickly tore into the satchel at his side containing small vials of pain-numbing, focus-stimulating medicine. He swallowed the contents of one vial and shifted against the wall at his back. He distantly felt the barb under his armour crawl down his back a ways, and felt a new flush of liquid stream down after it. He brought another vial to his lips. After remaining still for a while, the medicine set to work and Ezio began to think more clearly. He took account of the day's accomplishments:

He'd stayed awake the previous night evulsing information from guardsmen, nobles, and government officials on the whereabouts of the Templars of Venezia. He'd heard from Antonio's men that several of Italia's most prominent were frequenting the city, perhaps scouting in the interest of something more grievous later on. The thieves' grapevines only grew so long, however, so Ezio had spent the past two—or was it three?— nights gleaning information from sources buried deeper. The search was going well by now, and Ezio had spent the majority of the day tailing a particularly knowledgeable priestess. He'd also completed a small mission from Lorenzo sent by carrier pigeon, and aided the brothel of San Marco in choosing a trustworthy _dotore_.

Ezio was feeling a bit more proud and optimistic until he remembered the now-bloodstained letter inside his robes. Distracted by word of the tomb of Amunet, he'd accidentally neglected to deliver a message to the leader of a sub-group of thieves in southern Castello. And damn it all, he'd also forgotten to eavesdrop around the Frari for additional information on the Templars' intermittent appearances. Ezio sighed and hung his head. It was already late in the day, so the church might not be as populated anymore—the gossip tended to peak around high noon. Still, he could find courtesans there at all hours, undoubtedly some who had been in and out of the crowd since morning. There was still time.

Begrudgingly, he decided he would visit the Frari's courtesans first to gather what information he could, then make his way to Castello to deliver the letter. A doctor would just take too long, considering the small window he had left until nightfall when the courtesans swap out and the thieves take to the shadows to begin their work. Ezio stood briskly, and to his satisfaction did not feel broken at all. When he stepped out of the alley into a jog, though, the pain started all over again. He stumbled right in front of a group of high-class merchants and their wives, causing them all to gasp and shuffle back. They cast fearful eyes on the assassin, scrutinizing his unwieldy movements for any sign of threat. Ezio forced his grunt into a terribly awkward half-cough and wobbled out of the way, at last straightening his posture to something resembling a normal person.

"_Perdonatemi,_" he rasped with a smile, quite convincing for the way he felt.

That seemed to do the trick, because the group soon returned pace and walked on. One of the noblemen even gave Ezio a nod of forgiveness as he passed by. More cognizant now, Ezio realized the familiarity of the area was due to its proximity to Leonardo's studio- _wait. Leonardo!_ The studio would make the perfect place to resituate for the long night ahead. He'd only need maybe fifteen minutes to gather his bearings, staunch his worst wounds, get the accursed metal barb out of his back... But if Leonardo saw those injuries, well, that wouldn't save Ezio any time at all. What excuse was there to inconspicuously hang around for a break? Leonardo knew him better. Leonardo knew that Ezio did not go out of his way to chat without great meaning. ...But Ezio _does _go out of his way to deliver pieces of the codex. Even better, it would keep Leonardo busy translating, his attention away from the assassin while he fixed himself up. Ezio dug through his satchels, pouches, and other, less conventional storage places on his person, silently praying he had a spare page tucked away somewhere. He sensed the roots of despair creeping nearer when his hands turned up empty, but his face brightened immediately once he remembered the empty wine bottle under his cape- he'd started keeping the codex in bottles ever since he nearly ruined one, inadvertently, by jumping into a canal. Sure enough, the bottle was still whole, thinner than most and secured upright against his left side. Inside one scroll was contained, safe and dry. Ezio limped triumphantly a full forty paces to the studio's ornate front door.

He stared hard, for a time, at the intricately carved wood. _Appearances,_ he remembered, and wrested his firmly resisting body into the learned shape of confidence and composure. Shoulders down, back straight (_oh, the pain ignites_), tension buried. Just as his knuckles would touch the wood, he remembered one last feature: hood off. He then knocked and opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

The more armour the assassin accumulated, the more difficult it was to find a comfortable place for Leonardo's arms. The two parted their greeting embrace, and Leonardo stepped aside in a mock bow with his left arm extended to invite his guest inside. Ezio snorted and batted the door shut behind himself as he strode past the artist.

As was becoming sad habit, Leonardo looked up and glanced over Ezio's frame in examination for injury. To any other person, the assassin would appear perfectly healthy no matter his true condition- as his profession called for. Years of experience allowed Leonardo, however, to pick up on the nuances that indicated otherwise: little imperfections in posture, the tightness of shoulders, inaudible creases in his voice... Tiny or well-shielded blots of blood could sometimes signal a gash ten times their size underneath. It was probably starting to look suspicious the way he would routinely roll his eyes over the assassin, but Leonardo was vastly more inconspicuous when he looked at Ezio for reasons borne out of lust.

Gait stable, no hushed exhales of relief, no obvious red stains. Leonardo hated that cape though, sometimes. Elegant as it was draping over Ezio's athletic form, it did its job well to conceal the greater part of his weaponry- and most of his left side. The artist was craning his neck to spot a glance underneath it when Ezio turned right and another spectacle caught his eye: out from under the buckled bottom end of his plackart cascaded a great, seeping maroon. How had he not noticed earlier?

Leonardo gaped. Ezio was casually meandering from paintings to collections of jars to other ambiguous inventions, observing advances in the recent projects strewn about the studio (or rather, trying to appear more concerned about his surroundings than the splitting pain hammering his back with each step). When he broke the silence, he did so with an uplifting, mischievous tone and stole a glance back toward his friend. "You have been busy as always, I see. Everything is just a tiny step further than the last time I came around, and all together I'd say that's the amount of work it would take to complete one whole project! Ah you are only one man, Leo-" Ezio began to shrug and turn back, but Leonardo's right hand found his shoulder and roughly pushed it forward so as to allow Leonardo access to the discovered wound.

Ezio shuffled forward. "Leo? _Che cosa-_"

"You are hurt, _amico mio, _do not tell me you do not know this. What has happened? Sit down. Tell me what happened. How badly are you injured?" Leonardo knelt slightly and pressed his fingers under the bottom of the plackart to try and see the extent of damage underneath. He grabbed the annoying cape and thrust it forward over Ezio's arm, expecting more signs of concealed laceration. To his credit, Ezio did not wince, whimper, nor jerk away when the cuirass shifted against his back. He simply looked back to Leonardo, even managing a patronizing grin. Ezio considered lying, for a moment, to say that the blood was not his, that it was not truly blood, anything to remove the attention from the embarrassing gash.

"The blood is not fresh, Leo," he argued and added an upbeat chuckle for effect, pretending to strain himself to look back at the blotch. "I can hardly remember the last time I washed these robes."

Well, it did happen at least _one_ hour ago.

Leonardo pinched the thick fabric between his thumb and forefinger. "I see. Then why is it still wet?"

"I.. do not think you would like for me to explain how the captain of the guard's blood found its way there."

The artist hesitated in a way that Ezio could not interpret. "...Yet you say this blood is not fresh? You did not answer my question, Ezio."

"It happened earlier today. There was quite a lot of blood. I would not expect it all to have dried by now." Then he added, "I cleaned what I could before visiting you. _Mi dispiace che ti causato tu tanti fastidi, amico._"

Leonardo remained visibly unimpressed, but it seemed his initial alarm had tapered off. He finally stood and waved off the dispute, turning back to spread the new page upon his desk. "Still. Still I suggest you stay, if only now to leave in the morning with clothes less incriminating." He gathered his shoulders and leaned into the page, unable to fully immerse himself in the riddle over the thought of his friend striding about the city, the very picture of murder, a literal red flag for the guard of Venezia. But perhaps not _murder—_Leonardo knew too well that Ezio's targets were chosen in order to kill the fewest number and impact the greatest. _Murder_ connoted something else... Predator. Yes, Leonardo rather imagined Ezio a predator stalking the streets—no, soaring across the roofs—splattered, dexterous, strong...

The deep clanking of weapons and armour near his fireplace benevolently drew him from his blackening unreality. _Splattered_, yes, he remembered, and quickly recovered his original train of thought. He looked back.

Ezio shifted on a low wooden chair and loosened the lefthand ties on his belt. He drew his sword slowly to set it aside so it would not cut the rugs or scrape the floor. He stretched his legs toward the fire and pulled the red ribbon from his hair. If he sighed with the intense relief he felt then, Leonardo did not hear it.

It was as much of a compliment as it was alluring watching the assassin so freely disregard the affects and garbs that seared the affinity for bloodshed into his very essence. That any assassin would disarm himself and turn the back of his bare neck to Leonardo was enormously flattering. He couldn't help but smile. Ezio couldn't help but fall asleep.

But it would be rude to take his friend's hospitality so willingly, Ezio decided, and so he busied himself with his greaves to prevent himself from drifting any further. Every part of him wanted to succumb to the glow of the fireplace, the familiar scents, the perplexing feeling of security. Every part save the ingrained nobility that demanded he stop taking from Leonardo more than he deserves. There was always that guilt whenever Leonardo offered him things, from mere affection to spur-of-the-moment shelter from entire troops of guards. From the day they met Leonardo had been nothing but kind and generous. Ezio simply did not know how to repay the man.

"Would you like some tea, my friend? I think I will make a pot once I am finished with this page."

There, again, with the generosity!

On cue, Ezio raised his mask of pleasant nonchalance and waved off the offer with his cestus-clad hand. "You give me too much! Please, Leonardo. I will be out shortly. Or however long it is before you spoil me again." The pain in his back was twisting.

"_Ezio_." The harshness in his voice buried his concern perfectly. He stood straight and faced the assassin's back with arms crossed. He let the awkward silence float around until Ezio glanced back.

"I am not so much offering you to stay here for your sake as I am for mine. It would be on my conscience should you leave here without rest and with a bloody stain instead." Leonardo tossed his hands about as he spoke.

"Do not worry for me, _amico_. I still have many errands to complete and I would disappoint quite a few factions if I failed them. I will be fine-"

"I did not ask if you would be fine, nor did I tell you I would worry. Do not misinterpret my words, Ezio, I asked you to stay on my behalf." Leonardo pointed at him viciously, but kept his tone at a cool, assertive level.

Ezio was taken aback at the remark. Was Leonardo not worried, then? What would happen if he did leave and damaged Leonardo's conscience? It must be something severe, the uncharacteristic way the artist said it. But- Wasn't he just told not to misinterpret? Ezio was confused, and it showed plainly on his face.

Leonardo then snapped back to his more common demeanor with a smile. "On second thought I think I'll pour us wine. _Stay._ If I find you've gone missing while my back is turned then the page remains untranslated." And at that he paced toward the back of the studio with the small kitchen door.

Ezio watched him go, only a little offended and a little more confused than before.

Once he was certain that Leonardo had disappeared entirely, once he had waited just the right amount of seconds to be sure, Ezio released the heavy breath it felt he'd been containing for ages. He dropped his head and repositioned himself sturdily upon the chair, then set to work much with far more haste removing the garments binding like coiling snakes around his wounds. First, the cuirass. Buckle after buckle he unlatched and left hanging haphazardly, the pressure on his back easing with each one. It was really no less painful, however, as the blood gluing the wound to his shirt and the metal atop was separating, layer by layer, thick strings pulling and ripping from the wound and causing fresh streams to ooze anew. Ezio drew his breath and his face contorted. His feet slid back against the floor, and he tried to breath more steadily through his nose so that when Leonardo reappeared, he wouldn't seem so winded. The wide puncture hidden beneath his spaulder ached to be freed, too, but suddenly Ezio's ears pricked at the soft and distant sound of leather soles switching direction on wooden floor. He'd long since learned to identify all kinds of shuffling noises, both in training and by experience. In an instant the assassin slackened his pose upon the chair and swallowed the intense pain gripping his tired form.

It took a great feat of will for Ezio to again feign a relaxed, content expression. He leaned against the small back of the chair—such that only his shoulder blades made contact—and laced his fingers together low over his abdomen. He crossed his ankles, and in that moment Leonardo returned with two glasses for wine and a bottle to share.

Leonardo might have said something, but Ezio's eyes bore into the fire in front of him. In all his focus on pain and appearance the rest of the world was null.

The artist waited for a reply, then finished pouring the second glass. _Either asleep, or caught in reflection_, thought Leonardo, and he stepped over to intervene. He bent down just a bit behind Ezio and nudged his right shoulder with the glass.

Before Leonardo could speak, Ezio jolted away from the nudge and whipped his head back, eyes wide and alert. The simple press of the glass against his shoulder sent blazes through his arm. The suddenness of his response even surprised Leonardo, and he startled in return. Ezio was quick to realize his mistake, however, and so he smoldered his expression of alarm into a tired grin. He wished he had left the hood over his eyes.

"You awoke me from my thoughts, Leonardo_. _You should not startle a contemplating _assassino_."

"Apologies, Ezio. I'd considered you might have been asleep." He extended the glass. "What are you so distracted with?"

"The tomb of Amunet," he lied. It was the first thing that came to his mind. He took the glass.

"Amunet... the term sounds familiar. Egyptian, if I'm not mistaken. It is a name, isn't it? _Amunet..." _Leonardo stroked his short beard and looked wistfully around the upper bounds of the room.

Ezio grabbed the edge of his chair and readjusted his sitting position, suppressing a small groan with a clearing of his throat. "...She was an assassin. I have read what there is to her, but there isn't much. She was famous for killing Cleopatra."

"Ah! That sounds about right. I do recall reading a bit of an ancient text from an archive on Julius Caesar, once. That's where I've heard the name. If I still had the sources, I'd certainly let you borrow them, but unfortunately they were not mine to keep."

"Another time, then." The response didn't make a great deal of sense, but Ezio really couldn't care less about ancient history at the moment. He took the largest sip of his wine that could still be deemed civilized.

"What of this tomb, then?"

Ezio was not in the mood for conversation, and his codex page wasn't proving to be the distraction he planned it to be. His medicine's effects were waning, too, even at the doubled dose, so he needed to think of a plan B quickly. "I heard rumours it might be somewhere inside the Basilica of San Marco. Accessible from the outside. I was investigating it today, but I... I ran out of time. I had other matters to attend to. Do you have a map of the building? Any literature?"

There was definitely something peculiar about this whole situation, Leonardo sensed. Everything was very normal in a way, right down to Ezio's interest in scholarship to the firm extent that it was immediately useful. But there was something off, like a marginally off-centered portrait or a barely off-tune lute. "Hm... I might. _Un momento._" Placing his glass on the work table with the abandoned codex page, Leonardo strode to the back of the studio where he kept his books and notes in one, sad heap. Some books were properly shelved, but laughably, they only emphasized the monstrous keep of disorganized knowledge right beside.

At the first flutter of pages, Ezio set to work. He tossed his head back and downed the remaining wine in one, full gulp, then set the glass aside. He braced himself steadily upon his seat and scooted forward a ways, allowing himself room to arch his back inward. It felt like a mace was running up his back, separating his spine from the rest. In this position, though, Ezio could use one hand to pull the loosened plackart away and use the other to reach up inside. _Oh, god_, _it was bloody. _He found the barb with ease, and to his surprise, it released his back quite easily. With all its moving, it must not have had time to dry itself in one place.

Ezio drew a deep breath, quietly as he could, and gingerly pulled the barb down and out from under his cuirass. He silently thanked all the gods he knew, and took a brief moment to appreciate the feeling of _not_ having a fist-sized, curving section of a metal crucifix tunneling through his back. Absently he looked down into his palm. The shutter that ran over his shoulders stole his balance for a second, and he held the back of the chair with his other hand. The barb was disgustingly dark, seeped in reflective, shadowy red, thickly coating absolutely every inch of the shape. It drooled through the creases in Ezio's fingers and dripped on the floor at a constant rate, too fast for Ezio's approval. _Tap tap tap tap tap..._

He stared dumbly for a time, perhaps overcome with a combination of drugs, alcohol, sleeplessness, and amazement. Then, his attention rounded back with a sharp realization—what to _do_ with this dripping piece of metal?

His eyes darted around the room. He held his opposite hand under the barb to catch its rapid deposits, then quickly decided he should shove the thing in his pouch containing smoke bombs and bullets. Both hands in use, he twisted awkwardly to try and maneuvre the pouch at the back of his belt open with either wrist. His panic only increased upon stealing a glance Leonardo's way—to see him staring right back.


	3. Chapter 3

The two men held that reciprocal stare for almost a full ten seconds. They even nearly mirrored each others' expressions, though Leonardo's contained more disbelief and Ezio's more fear. The fire seemed tenfold louder in this acute silence. Ezio's hand catching the barb's droplets at last spilled over, and the sound of the heavy stream hitting the wood flooring sent Leonardo racing.

Ezio's voice came back to him all at once, so he did not know whether to start consoling, lying, or apologizing. What resulted was a most ineloquent combination of all three.

"Le- _ah_, ha-ha, please don't worry about this, really everything is fine, I-I will be sure to clean the blood off your floor before I go, I promise— I- Leonardo I am so sorry-"

Leonardo did not affront the assassin immediately, though he stormed toward him in a brewing panic and frustration. To Ezio's relief he strode right past him, cape billowing and—how appropriate—inadvertently smacking him right in the face. Leonardo instead crouched by the fireplace and set the nearby kettle into its holder above the flame. At that he stood again, stole the whole pile of linens off the mantle and only then did he approach. There was fury in his eyes as he stood before the assassin. He simply looked at him, briefly, so many emotions tossed together with no way to sort them.

There sat this crumpled man, the object of Leonardo's affections. Dutiful, passionate, broken in so many ways. At first Leonardo thought he could name this feeling something like pity, but no, it was not pity at all. In essence all he wanted to do was to grab Ezio by the face, shake him a few times for good measure, and tell him to _STOP_. That was it. The damaged form in front of him was due to a sickening not-stopping. Every time Leonardo saw the man (which was becoming less frequent, to add) it was only for a few words mid-mission, often times with the company of another of the assassin order to discuss plans. And Ezio would always exit with a very serious reassurance that he _would not _stop: "It will be done." "I will do that right away." "I will see to it that it is finished tonight." "Consider it done." There was some unplaceable anger welling in the artist's face, when Ezio finally looked up to him.

Leonardo could not meet the assassin's eyes, so he took the opportunity to shake his head disapprovingly, then knelt down to begin his work. He could not trust himself to remain calm, looking into that face.

Ezio downcast his eyes, as well. _Failure_. He'd risked putting his dearest friend through this sort of pain again, and he was too arrogant to heed the possibility that it might happen. _I have used you_, he thought. _I __am__ selfish and I have abused your __generosity__. _

"...Remove your armour. Tell me where you are injured." Leonardo was surprisingly soft in his tone.

_No one should have to suffer the burdens I bring him. _Ezio was quiet. He heard Leonardo, but the meaning of his words did not register. In truth all of his senses were fading, becoming more distant as time went on. His mind was only capable of following one conversation at the moment, and he continued to listen to his own._ I have betrayed you. _

Leonardo raised an eyebrow. "Ezio. Speak. We can sort this through once we have you repaired, but right now I need you to do as I say."

Again the words carried no meaning, but in the least this time they caught Ezio's attention. He raised the hand with the bloody barb and rubbed the back of his wrist against his forehead, trying to maintain focus. "...I am sorry, Leonardo. I do not intend... to cause you trouble." _I do not deserve you._

"_Ezio. _Your _armour." _He nearly spat the words this time.

"...What?" Ezio looked up with nothing more than pure confusion. Everything was making less sense than before.

"_Per l'amor-" _Giving up, Leonardo dropped the linens and dug his fingers into the front latches of Ezio's chest guard. Ezio looked down in delayed reaction.

"What are you doing?"

The question was so genuine that Leonardo scoffed. "Cooperate, _per favore! _Ezio-" he sighed, "Just set the thing down. Anywhere. And your... handful of blood. Just- _here._" He removed his right hand from the labyrinth of buckles, clips and ties to toss one of the linens over Ezio's hand. "Now help me with this."

Ezio concentrated as deeply as he could manage, hesitated while his friend's words took on on bits of meaning, then slowly, carefully, set the gory mass onto the floor beside his sword. He soaked up the blood in his other palm—that which had not seeped through yet—with the provided cloth. By that time Leonardo had disconnected the chest guard from the plackart, leaving the halves of the cuirass only connected at the back. He swung the two pectorals of the chest guard away from each other and got to work removing the assassin's insignia to get at the plackart underneath the sash.

To ease Leonardo's work, Ezio first removed his cape. Then the cestus. He considered removing his vambraces next, but the thought of it made him feel naked. Vulnerable. There was certainly no reason to feel so exposed inside Leonardo's studio, but then again reason was not guiding most of Ezio's logic by now. Instead he motioned to remove his right spaulder, but quickly remembered the gash underneath. The sash needed to be gone before any other part of his armour could be removed, and Leonardo was already making fast work of that. So in pitiful indecision Ezio raised his left forearm and looked at it awhile before beginning to take off the vambrace.

With the sash and its accompanying belt set safely on the ground, Leonardo untied the laces at the cuirass' sides. To make the final separation of the cuirass from the tunic underneath Leonardo positioned his fingers between the cuirass' right side laces and swiftly pried the two halves apart.

In an instant, all colour drained from Ezio's face, the vambrace in his hands hit the floor, and he _screamed_.

Leonardo jolted and toppled back onto his rear, breathing hard. Ezio ground his teeth in a growl and hung his head, digging his right hand nails into the chair between his legs. His left hand seemed immobilized where it dropped the vambrace, shaking visibly and tensed as if he meant to break someone's invisible neck. On regaining his senses Leonardo scrambled back to his knees in front of the assassin and gently took the left of the man's jaw in his palm. Any form of anger or frustration inside him evaporated in that moment. With equal amounts care and firmness, he turned Ezio's face toward himself.

"_Respira, Ezio. Per favore, respira. Dimmi dove ti fa male," _Leonardo said very seriously.

Ezio groaned a vicious, breathy groan and gained enough control over his left hand to motion vaguely behind himself. "_M-Mia-," _he stuttered. In an attempt at comfort, Leonardo set his other hand on Ezio's shoulder just before the spaulder. The pain there was not severe in comparison to the combustion of pain in his back, but Leonardo's touch was more than enough to kindle a terrifying promise of further agony. Suddenly the hand clawing Ezio's chair shot out and gripped Leonardo's bicep, forcing the arm back and away. His fingers pressed menacingly into the cloth like talons ripping into an opponent.

Both men startled. Leonardo drew back a ways, but kept his eyes fixed. Ezio relaxed his fingers, but kept his grip. In truth he was afraid he'd fall off the chair if he let go, Leonardo having moved away from him. He had it in his mind to apologize though something about his thickening mental slur prevented the words from making it to his lips. Luckily, Leonardo took charge instead. He held Ezio's wrist lightly—a support, in more than one sense of the word—and reexamined his condition. The assassin was growing paler by the minute, and when he did regain his breath, it was heavy and laboured.

Leonardo remained calm and collected, determined to see his friend to recovery. "Your shoulder. Was it your shoulder, Ezio?"

By this time Ezio's head had begun to droop again, but he looked up at the words. The artist's sharp gaze told him to stay focused, to maintain eye contact. He tried, indeed he tried with all mental capacity he could strain from the fog. But everything was blurring at the edges no matter how he adjusted his vision. "..._Cosa hai detto? __A-Aspetta._" Ezio blinked and suddenly his pupils shrunk magnificently. His squinting ceased, and a new wave of clarity and simplicity washed over him—far more dramatically than any other time he'd utilized his unique vision. It was as if the screens over his perception had been lifted, carrying away anything nonessential. There was Leonardo. Friend, ally, deep blue. There was pain, too, but now experienced as a gradient of motion: his back, shoulder and leg felt to be churning quite fast, while other parts felt nonexistent. That was all there was.

Leonardo was confounded. A cosmic intuition reminded him of the times he'd been told of the assassin's special ability, and he considered if he might be witnessing its use up close. "Ezio?" He had a hundred questions.

The experience was transcendental. Sure, every other time using eagle vision was similar to this—a second shell, an outside observer—but never before did it feel so real. So... immersive. When Leonardo spoke to him there was no sound. It didn't even occur to Ezio that there should be sound. In this world, he was removed from the equation. The very notion of his own existence was swept away, effectively locking himself in an observatory state. Ezio's hand slipped from Leonardo's bicep and he fell forward.

Leonardo gasped and at once positioned himself to catch Ezio by his side and (good) shoulder. He grunted from the sudden weight against him, and tried to shuffle to some kind of awkward, kneeling position to get Ezio back upright before he was out of his chair completely.

"_Ezio!"_

A short struggle later, Leonardo successfully managed to stand, and he motioned Ezio's body back to his centre of gravity upon the chair. Ezio made a quiet, low noise through parted lips. Leonardo stepped in front and held both Ezio's arms. He leaned forward in scrutiny, noting the assassin's unblinking, half-lidded eyes and their microscopic pupils. The phenomenon was absolutely fascinating, considering that one's pupils ought to dilate in such a wounded condition, but Leonardo reserved his curiosity for another time. Instead, he gave Ezio a half-hearted slap across his left cheek, to which the assassin was fully indifferent.

"..._F__ottere."_


	4. Chapter 4

It was fortunate for the both of them that Leonardo was trained and experienced in stilling a trembling hand, otherwise he'd have never been able to navigate through the remaining connectors of Ezio's armour. The spaulder came off with ease, braced only to the cuirass by one buckle and three small, but durable hooks underneath. A great blossom of red on white linen was stuck to Ezio's skin beneath the spaulder, affirming his expectations. The wide puncture was still dribbling, but it would be of no use to staunch it before the rest of the armour and cloth stifling it were removed. Extricating the cuirass proved a difficult task, having to keep Ezio from slumping this way and that, but at last Leonardo got the hulking set to join the bloody pile on top of the barb and sword.

In five different places on the back of Ezio's tunic there were thick, dark blotches of blood where the cuirass had bound itself. The tunic was torn only near the bottom, just where the belt used to be. It had to be lifted to get at the blouse underneath -the _last _layer, Leonardo reminded himself- but Ezio showed no signs of becoming sentient enough to lift his arms. For a minute Leonardo had the ridiculous idea of _not_ simply cutting the thing off. He grabbed Ezio's wide knife from the floor and, using one hand to keep him steady, sliced the tunic at the right side from the bottom to where it met an arm hole. Slicing up the back would be dangerous, and the connected hood would prove an interference. He peeled, literally _peeled, _the fabric from the blouse underneath. While the slick, wet sound roused tremors in Leonardo, the most the act elicited from Ezio was brief shiver and a quiet sigh.

_Silence. _Leonardo froze at the horrific, gruesome sight that was Ezio's back. _Red. _There wasn't a white spot left of the shredded, thin fabric- _everything _was a vile, shining red. The blood hadn't soaked into it, the blood had soaked _through _it and continued to dribble as if the shirt was merely there to show off how much blood could escape its barrier. The previous events of the night were disconcerting on many levels, but _this_, this for the first time forced to Leonardo's mind the nauseating idea that he may very well now be responsible for determining whether Ezio should live or die.

"Nonsense," he reassured himself, though he had to say it aloud to start believing it. Leonardo was quick to revert back to a rational standpoint. There were alarms everywhere in his head, but he shut them out in favor of an intelligent approach. He went through some possible identities for this kind of injury, and drew out the mental lists of medical procedure corresponding to each. He even glanced about as he pulled the lists from his memory, as though he was pinning them to the air for his reference in the strange brand of genius tendencies he was prone to.

_This mangled shirt must be removed to affirm the true case._ "Well my friend, it is fortunate you have lost your mind before I- ah, not to be rude, I mean, but I don't think you should enjoy the way this would feel if you were, em, 'present'," he spoke to no one in particular as he rolled up his sleeves and began tugging out Ezio's tucked blouse. That same, detestable sound of sopping blood and cloth resounded when Leonardo began to separate the last layer from Ezio's skin. To worsen the matter, certain parts of the fabric were dried into the flesh. Most were still free-moving, however, steeped in freshly oozing blood. Leonardo picked up the wide knife again to cut away the problematic patches, but dropped it in a huff, deciding that it really wouldn't matter to Ezio if he simply ripped the cloth away or not.

And so Ezio did not mind, after all. Completely ignoring grace or caution, Leonardo tensed his arms and pulled the shirt upward, ripping past any places it stuck. It was uncommon for the artist to favor the forceful option in solving a problem, but despite the impressive measure of rationality he was able to salvage before, there was a stinging sense of emergency that stole away from his better judgement. The shirt fully bundled up to Ezio's shoulders, Leonardo could clearly see the extent of damage. Or rather, he could, if the whole damned expanse of Ezio's back wasn't painted over. It truly looked like the man's back was a solid plane of red. Leonardo broke his inert staring and leaned over Ezio's left shoulder to observe his condition. With his hair untied Ezio's features were well-masked while he kept his head down, his hair virtually shielding his face from the rest of the world. Leonardo drew the leftside curtain away, then allowed it to fall back upon completion of his observation: no change. Ezio was rigidly bound in his own, surreal realm of colours and motion.

Leonardo needed to fetch supplies, but Ezio would surely collapse without his support. The artist stayed his hands upon the assassin's shoulders, no longer mindful of the wound on his right, and tried to evict some creative solution from his crowded thoughts. He wanted to take the easy approach, the fast approach, to lean Ezio back against the chair, but soon cringed at the thought that the wood might sink into the exposed flesh. Anything he'd need to prop the man up would require- _oh, damn this all to hell_, he suddenly decided, and in one motion he hoisted his vegetative friend up against himself, and, with much wobbling and grunting, kicked the chair toward the nearest wall.

The kettle was boiling. Leonardo was thoroughly marked with assassin blood. Ezio was not too heavy for the artist to manage, but there was great struggle in maneuvering his uncooperative body to the floor in such a way that his back was exposed and none of his limbs interfering. Leonardo also kicked Ezio's sword and armour out of the way on his way down, not feeling so apologetic to the items that he felt deserved some illogical blame for all of this.

At last he stood apart from Ezio. Unhooking his thick red cape, he bunched it together and quickly swiped the hot kettle from the fire. The kettle was set roughly on the fireplace's short, stone hearth, and its owner set to retrieve supplies while he shifted out of his stifling, bloody doublet. He shimmied out of the doublet all the way to the kitchen where medicines were kept, and upon reaching it tossed the doublet and cape on the cloak rack beside the small door. He was left in a thin, breathable blouse. Grabbing the first bowl within reach, a wide washing basin, he swung open the wire-lattice cabinet that housed his herbs, tinctures, and more experimental medicines of his own design. Ezio's back was much too thickly caked with blood for Leonardo to even begin to hypothesize the correct remedies, so he gathered some standard items- vinegar to clean with, witch hazel extract for inflammation, concentrated basil and sage for infection, yarrow and valerian for pain. Out of a mild paranoia, he threw in a few mixtures reserved for rare kinds of injuries, before scavenging the top shelf for suturing thread, needles, and forceps.

A prickling feeling continued to bother Leonardo, telling him he was forgetting vital supplies, doing something wrong. _No_, he told himself, _I am rushing this; it is the urgency of the matter that brings about worry. _Aware of himself as he was, he felt no relief at this realization. He could analyze his thoughts and emotions to perfect accuracy, but wasn't it the curse of being human that it made no practical difference. Leonardo forced himself to move on, momentarily, accidentally allowing his carefully made mental lists to drift back into the air.

He returned from the kitchen to the fire, and to his dismay found Ezio yet unmoving, bleeding, defeated in front of the flames. He wasn't expecting change, per se, but from afar the assassin looked twice as... _dead_. Leonardo set the bowl down and got to his knees behind the red, weeping canvas of flesh. In the light of the fire, the arches of several yellowish, gleaming ribs could be seen with no skin remaining to shield them. Leonardo was certainly not squeamish in the face of dismantled creatures of any kind, but his eyes were fixated on the total severity of the skinning Ezio had received. He poured vinegar over his hands and toweled them dry.

"Ezio. If you are still conscious in some way, I'd warn you that this will sting. I'm sorry. I must clear the blood away before I can properly treat you." He felt somewhat manic, talking to Ezio in his bizarre comatose state, but it was mostly for Leonardo's sake anyway. He doused one of the linens with the same vinegar, then pressed the cloth flat to Ezio's upper back with a '_slop'_. He waited- only a couple of seconds though, half-expecting some explosive response. Nothing happened save for a faint hiss from the vinegar's reaction. Leonardo was both glad and disappointed.

He began to douse a second linen for Ezio's lower back, when he caught sight of the assassin's right arm, twitching visibly. Leonardo paused. He heard a quivering inhale (emphasizing the glimmer of the exposed ribs), and instantly held the arm still, leaning over to inspect.

"Ezio? Are you back with me? _Riesci a sentirmi?_"

Ezio flinched once more, and his whole body began to shudder. Leonardo started to tremble a bit, too. He shook Ezio's arm with a force just beyond "gentle."

"_Ascoltami, _Ezio! You- you..."

He stopped short of his commands on taking notice of the assassin's eyes—his pupils at first dilated to the very edges of his dark irises, then shrank back to the tiny specks they were before. _Incredible_, Leonardo was thinking, when the pupils resumed their ordinary size and Ezio gasped back to life.

He tore his right arm from Leonardo's hold, planted it on the floor, and thrust himself to his feet faster than anyone—even he, at the time—could safely manage. The astringent liquid at his back had not only infuriated the torture, but ripped him from his delicate world of clarity. It threw him abruptly into this awful reality where pain was now _much_ more than a mere conception of motion. He stumbled back, grit his teeth through an animalistic growl, and clasped the heels of his hands to his temples. The world had just gone from white to black in a moment's time, and suddenly he thought of his brothers. _Wait- _Why did he think of his brothers?

All senses were returning to him malformed and ineffective; every one of them rang and shrieked as though he'd never before experienced an atmosphere perceptible to them. Someone was in front of him. He felt cold and burning at the same time, and the someone was now latched onto his side and left arm. He wanted to know this someone's identity. He tried re-entering his second sight to at least understand whether or not this grasping, pulling person ought to be killed, but the instant he did, the instant Ezio's pleading eyes met Leonardo's frantic face, Leonardo removed both hands and shook the assassin's head briskly, shouting a startling, _"NO!"_ He saw the pupils shrinking. He held Ezio that way for awhile, staring straight into him, daring him to fall away again, threatening him to stay.

Ezio stared back, though his expression faltered with pain several times. He blinked rapidly, held onto an easel he found with a blind, backward strike of his hand. Bitten as his memory was, Ezio was still able to recognize the daunting face. Leonardo was one of his stronger memories, after all. The artist must have picked up on the tacit realization, because he brushed Ezio's hair from his face and began to speak, slowly.

"Good. Now just- if you would just f-focus..." With a deep breath he again held Ezio's side, and began to guide him back to the rather gory Florentine rug in front of the fireplace.

Ezio was reluctant to leave the easel he'd found to support him, and in doing so fell forward without a left knee to catch him properly. Leonardo took the brunt of the fall, and braced himself with feet apart and arms clasped sturdily to Ezio's sides. He did what he could to avoid touching the hypersensitive lacerations on Ezio's back, but gathered quickly that the vinegar cloth had ended up elsewhere, because his fingers slipped right into the wet, scathed, bleeding masses of Ezio's shoulder blades. For being so non-squeamish, he cringed at the feeling. So did Ezio.

"A-Apologies, _amico mio_, but I-!" he started between laboured grunts, trying to both readjust and shuffle backward with a heaping warrior atop him. Ezio grappled for Leonardo's shoulders and tripped whenever Leonardo made any progress moving, but bore through the daggers of the artist's fingers by tensing himself even further. He stomached another gutteral groan of pain.

"N-no, it-," he rasped, "I- I ap- _V-va ben-e..._,_" _he attempted, and sunk his head, without his choosing, into the curve of Leonardo's neck.

Leonardo was sure that situations like these would be the closest the two would ever get to the alternative version, of Ezio pressed atop him needy and tense, breathing hard into his neck. He buried the thought immediately and scolded himself for losing attention.

Leonardo lowered them both back down onto the rug by the fire. It was challenging, getting Ezio to the floor gently while the man supported absolutely none of his own weight, but the artist struggled through with determination. The most Ezio accomplished for the effort was to steady himself with his left hand once it was close enough to touch the rug. He noticed that the rug sank wetly underneath his fingers. While Leonardo was inelegantly trying to remove himself from his compromising position between Ezio's legs, the assassin raised and looked hard at his left fingers. He rubbed them together, thoughtfully.

"...I... Think I have been... bleeding on your rug, Leonardo. _Mi-_" He swayed back once and blinked twice, apparently regaining a lost thought. "_Mi dispiace._"

Leonardo rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Can you keep yourself up? I need to care for the injuries on your back."

"_Sì._"

He obviously hadn't the slightest clue what he was agreeing to, because when Leonardo pulled away, Ezio slumped forward and his head dropped from Leonardo's shoulder. Both men caught hold of each other again in an instant.

"...It seems you have many lies to tell today," Leonardo mumbled rather heartlessly. "Place your hands here- and don't let your arms collapse on you. _Capisci_?" He took Ezio's right wrist and guided his hand to the gap of floor between them.

To this Ezio nodded silently. He watched his hands as Leonardo parted, and this time made sure to do as he was told.

The artist moved swiftly behind him, sat on his knees and surveyed for a place to begin. "Help me remove what is left of this shirt, Ezio. Hold out your arms, one at a time."

Again the assassin obeyed, though the difficulty in doing so was quite evident. The tattered shirt off and at his side, Leonardo recovered the linen originally intended for Ezio's lower back. It was already well-dampened with vinegar from his first attempt. He dabbed at the flayed skin and naked ribs. Ezio stiffened and his failing arms shook, but still he made not a sound.

Conversely, Leonardo had plenty of things to say. For a time he contemplated, swapping every so often between cleaning and drying, how to word everything he had in mind. Working away at this gnarled, shapeless gore he felt resentment. Toward the people responsible for this, toward Ezio for being so careless with his life, toward the Order for raising him to be so, or maybe even toward himself for being incapable of preventing this. He also felt the return of that ambiguous not-pity, wanting to wash this man of all his wounds and burdens, remind him that there is beauty and wonder in the world that lives aloft all adversity. He also had more practical things in mind, especially things concerning the curious inhuman behaviour of Ezio's eyes. Despite all this the artist chose to reserve conversation for later; it wasn't inobvious that his patient was having enough of a time keeping himself upright.

Musculature was frayed all over; certain parts where the barb hooked in more severely had been scraped into cavernous-looking wells that poured their dark contents ceaselessly over wounds below them. The snaking lacerations had started to bruise, too, combining with the visible rib bones to create the most disgusting, grotesque compound of wreckage imaginable even by the most demented of butchers. Leonardo's hands were coated as he cleaned and soaked, _over and over_, in a peaking frenzy.

The total bleeding could not be cleared all at once, Leonardo surmised—a cleaned area would resume its spilling less than a minute after he moved on. Following the labyrinth paths of the deep, torn channels in Ezio's flesh, he wondered how much blood was left to lose. He found answer enough by the way Ezio had started to breathe in the last few minutes, staggered and heavy with alarmingly chilled skin to match. Something had to be done, and _fast._

"Ezio my hands cannot keep up with the rate at which you are bleeding. I have cleansed over everything at least once," he rushed as fast as he worked, already preparing stretches of bandages and retrieving the tincture of basil and sage, "and it will have to do for now because I must bandage this to keep you from bleeding out." Starting from the top to avoid higher wounds' bleeding into lower bandages, Leonardo brushed over the blackened, long puncture at Ezio's shoulder with the tincture. "None of the bones here are broken to my knowledge, but if any are cracked or injured similarly, I cannot say." He didn't expect Ezio to respond.

"..._L-... Leo..._," he breathed, sounding every bit the ghost he was becoming.

Leonardo stopped. The hollow tone was terrifying.

"_I-" _The assassin's arms gave into his weight, but Ezio dug them farther apart from each other to remain upright. He was decidedly finished with disappointing Leonardo. "_I do not... Think..." _He exhaled sharply, wobbling and quivering with the discipline required to stay conscious.

Leonardo snapped back to action, ignoring the tincture and resigning to simply getting the carnage staunched as fast as possible. He layered strip after strip of bandages, each one soaking to saturation.

"Stay- Stay with me, Ezio. Focus on something. _Anything_. _Please_."

It seemed Ezio would answer no more, but when Leonardo had finished bombarding the lacerations with absorbent cotton bandaging, he might have heard the vaguest, softest "_sì,_" in response. He relocated himself in front of Ezio and returned to his knees, briskly sitting just before the pale, quavering arms. He began to wrap longer, wider bandages around Ezio's torso to keep the ones in back from shifting or falling, simultaneously returning to the assassin his shoulder-headrest by leaning in to reach around his midsection. Ezio was more than happy to oblige. With the most tiresome sigh he melted into Leonardo's presence, perhaps transferring too much of himself onto his caregiver's shoulder. His arms no longer bolstered himself, really, so he attempted to reach his right hand up to hold onto the back of the borrowed shoulder. Impressively, he managed to hold onto it for a full five seconds before his climbing-roughened fingertips slid from the cloth of Leonardo's shirt and dropped to the floor.

The gesture, even so terribly weak, spoke clearly to Leonardo, and his eyes became glassy at the reception. It was a plea. A symbol of trust. An apology. Ezio was stretched thin on his final fraying threads of consciousness, and he wanted to use what he had left to hold onto his oldest friend. Leonardo finished tying bandages around Ezio's torso and looped the remaining length over his right shoulder to cover the long puncture and miscellaneous, hellish carvings nearby. He concentrated through tear-blurred vision at the last, secured foldings. When all was completed, he collected what was left of the man bowed over on top of him, and held him close.

Leonardo didn't dare venture anywhere near the wounds he knew still swelled beneath his desperately-cast bandages, so he kept his hands and arms safely above the area. He held Ezio around his left shoulder, keeping his right hand to the back of Ezio's neck. He took in a great breath of consolation and finality, when he realized it wasn't his to decide when this battle was over.

"_Sei sveglio? Come ti senti?"_

It took a while, and a little, panicked nudge from Leonardo's shoulder, but Ezio awoke from his hazy half-sleep with a grunt.

"_...Stanco._"

It must have been the sheer absurdity of the evening, because although either of them wore copious amounts of sticky red stains by now, Leonardo laughed. _So close to death, and still plain as ever_, he thought. He laughed into Ezio's hair, letting it catch his stray tears. It was probably the finest thing Ezio had heard in weeks. He smiled at the sound into Leonardo's neck, feeling strangely warm and numb at the same time.


	5. Chapter 5

The first scarlet lights of twilight met the artist and assassin sitting side-by-side, separated into two new, wooden chairs in front of a suffering bed of flickering timber. Ezio's was stuffed at the back with several cushions and a folded-up blanket. It was a haphazard, tired attempt at keeping the hard wood off the gore swelling underneath his bandages. It was still uncomfortable, but both he and Leonardo had the bottle of wine from before emptied, and the last of the contents of the second one uncorked was sitting low in either men's glasses. Neither of them had said more than a few words in the past hour, staring in a mutual, solemn stupor at the unfed embers.

Initially Leonardo had the proper course in mind—to haul Ezio to bed and make him a strong tea from the prepared valerian and yarrow—but the assassin requested (though in a sort of wavering mumble) to finish the night the way his caretaker intended before all this happened. It was a mental battle that Leonardo easily lost. He'd ended up drinking the most of the wine, too. One would never guess it, though, because after his second glass, Ezio was inebriated to an extent that competed with times of his former life—times with Federico in Firenze. Leonardo had a hunch that Ezio probably hadn't eaten properly in a long while, but decided that on this occasion, drinking on an empty stomach was acceptable. So there they sat, both of them dazed and half-asleep, stained red just about as much as the damp rug beneath their chairs.

Ezio was usually quite a bit more lively when drunk, but this time he'd settled for a quieter demeanor. Even so, he was the one speak at last, after the long silence of night between the two.

"..._Leo,_" he called ever-so-softly, his voice broken at the edges from disuse. He lulled his head over in Leonardo's direction with the most earnest grin on his face.

Leonardo was relatively slow to react—partly from the wine, partly because he hadn't expected their silence to ever end—and when he did, he looked over with a raised eyebrow. His total expression said nothing of real curiosity, however.

Ezio said no more. He stared, almost lovingly, perhaps just wanting to catch the artist's attention. For a time Leonardo played along, letting himself appreciate the warm, shared air between them. He watched carefully as Ezio transferred his remaining wine to his left hand, and limply outstretched his right toward Leonardo as if the whole limb was held up by puppet strings. That same, lazy grin plastered his face. Leonardo peered down at the lifeless hand at his side, just out of reach of his chair by a few centimeters. The fingers bounced once, trying to communicate.

They seemed to be telling Leonardo to take hold. He might have, but a thought struck him when he lifted his left hand to do so: it would be rather too convenient should Ezio choose now to start reciprocating the veiled affections Leonardo had always so willingly provided. Yes, surely the poor artist's clouded judgement had somehow morphed this situation into exactly what he wanted it to be. And of course, Ezio was unlikely to be in his right mind, too, probably not even _trying _to raise the idea in Leonardo's selfish unconscious. He placed his hand back where it belonged—anywhere away from Ezio's—and felt terribly childish about the ordeal.

Ezio's thoughts, on the other hand, were drastically less complicated. He gave a last, petulant shake of his fingers and his tired arm fell. His dry knuckles scraped along the wet rug, but he kept his gaze upon his friend, who insisted more diligently now on watching the fire sputter and die.

Eventually, Leonardo looked elsewhere around the studio, beginning to think less dreamily after his bout of mental self-depreciation. _It will be morning soon_, he told himself absently, _and_ _la Signora di Bassano is expecting her portrait four days from now. Marcantonio ought to be informed that the Ten are skeptical about my store of corpses. Firenze was much more lenient concerning matters of science._ His mind continued to drift around the coming tasks of day, though his body steered him toward sleep. Before he was entirely lost to the world, however, a thickly stained slip of sealed parchment caught his eye where it jutted out from the blood-encrusted heap of weapons and armour behind. The parchment truly was like a raised hand just waiting to be called upon, in the way it was oddly angled to perfectly catch the fire's darting lights. Leonardo hesitated, at first quite decided that the letter was property of Ezio, a short while later feeling roguish and bizarrely deserving to read it.

He wasn't quite sure _why_ he felt such keen interest in the discovered note, but it had something to do with an intoxicated notion of reward— It was Leonardo who tended to the assassin's many wounds, Leonardo who had so often walked the path of reason, so often shunned impulse and let himself be kept in the dark about the Order's deeds out of nothing but courtesy. He stood with determination—and promptly stumbled aside. Standing was an altogether new experience from sitting, at the volume of wine consumed thus far. Despite his incapacitation, Leonardo was endlessly resourceful. Keeping one hand securely upon the chair back, he seized the iron fire poker and conceded to his seat, straining to rake the parchment to himself and only accidentally stabbing the rug twice. The achieved sense of victory with the letter in hand was deafened, disappointingly, by the looming background of remorse he felt for invading his friend's privacy. Yet the remorse was easily overcome, in one way or another, for with a promise to preserve and reseal the parchment to pristine normality, he wedged his thumbnails under the bottom of the seal and pried it open.

Most of the words scripted within were unfortunately rendered illegible due to an immense, dried red blotch at the letter's side, but the greater message was unmistakeable:

"_Ignatio,_

_This letter should serve to inform you of our current state concerning the Templars' affairs in-_

_know about the man I have sent to deliver this letter to you. If he has not-_

_is of our order. He is the surviving son of Giovanni. Mario, Paola, and-_

_reason to believe he is the one spoken of in the prophecy writ-_

_true, we have yet to locate the Vault and the Apple is likely-_

_Templars. _

_We have Ezio conducting search for the Templars that hav-_

_Should you require aid, I do recommend his service i-_

_work, and kills swiftly without drawing much att-_

_Please do consider him a resource at your dispos-_

_help. My men will acquaint yours to the nature of-_

_need more._

_Though I have explained much in th-_

_meet this week to elaborate priva-_

_hesitate to call upon Ezio, I am-_

_Have him return word to me so t-_

_carry your response, as pigeons have-_

_decree._

_~Antonio"_

It took no small amount of restraint for Leonardo to re-fold the letter correctly and _not_ toss it to the hungry fire. _"At your disposal," _he recounted viciously. Ezio had been sent to deliver this letter, Leonardo inferred, to someone reintroduced to the Order. To someone _more_ he'd soon be receiving tasks from, with a corresponding set of expectations to go along with them. Was this how Ezio was viewed by all of the Assassins Order? An indestructible killing machine lacking basic human limitations? Or worse, was this how Ezio viewed himself?

Leonardo looked to his side at the subject of the infuriating letter. Indestructible _indeed_, he looked, craned over the side of his chair sleeping in exhaustion, wrapped extensively in thick, bloody bandages and littered elsewhere with scars. Leonardo's nose wrinkled in sheer disgust at the thought of someone with such blatant disregard for the livelihood of the man he loved. But if that disregard belonged to Ezio himself... Perhaps this was he source of the ambiguous rage he felt previously. Tapping the edge of the letter against his thigh in a hateful tick, Leonardo broke his promise: with a surprisingly clear conscience he flicked the offending letter into the fire, which eagerly flared and gnawed at the delicate parchment until it was no more.

For the remainder of the dwindling twilight the artist watched the paper curl and shrivel out of existence. It was a simple, comforting sight, and Leonardo slipped to sleep at the first signs of dawn.


	6. Chapter 6

It was midday when at last Leonardo awoke in his studio. Sunlight was projecting sharply through the east windows, highlighting the dust swirling inside them and casting brilliant beams to the floor. It was warm. Too warm, in fact, as he realized he'd awoken under the cover of a green, woolen quilt he'd forgot existed since receiving it as a gift three years ago. He shifted uncomfortably, a slow feeling of nausea creeping over him the more he returned to the waking world. Finally, submitting to these irritating prods, he struck out a lazy arm against the quilt and opened his eyes. The fire had gone out, he saw. At least that wasn't contributing to the heat in the room. He then wondered absently about the time. In a drifting daze he decided he would mentally calculate it by catching sight of the angle of the light pouring through his windows, maybe some shadows for cross-reference, too—then he _remembered_. Leonardo was perfectly alert in an instant, when his attention shot to Ezio's chair at his left, finding it abandoned.

He jolted and sat upright immediately, eyes fixed on the empty chair, entirely oblivious to the nauseous feeling in his gut as it was replaced with an intense, hollow, sinking feeling. _I've overslept! I've overslept and he's left, running around out there with his back gored to the bones- Oh, if he falls- if he's hurt again- I must go find-!_

Leonardo's panic was abruptly interrupted when the rug that his chair was standing atop suddenly drew itself high up behind him. It was with such a force that the chair was angled toward the floor and shoved forward, Leonardo right with it. He gasped; with the combined shock of his thoughts and the unexpected lurch of his chair, the artist toppled forward and rolled over the thick green quilt. He scrambled swiftly (though without much coordination) to turn over and face his attacker, and his nerves melted through his chest on seeing none other than Ezio. He held the back-middle of the rug high, removing his hooded head from underneath the tent-like structure just as Leonardo looked his way. The assassin was fully-clad.

"Leonardo. _Mi dispiace._" It was said flatly, with an odd inclination that nothing was said at all.

The artist opened his mouth to rain scolding upon his friend for seeing him with his armour back in place (it truly did look very in-place, strapped neatly and tightly on the assassin's masculine frame), but in that moment, caught between finding words and standing on unwilling legs, Ezio disappeared underneath the end of the rug he was holding.

Leonardo began to form words, but at the strange scene before him he merely cocked his head to the side with a most puzzled expression on his face. For the time being, he settled for the obvious:

"Ezio? What are you doing under the rug?"

In response, Ezio reappeared on the other side, and scanned the ground with great scrutiny. Only on occasion, there surfaced a slight limp in his left leg. He did not look up.

"Have you seen a letter around? A yellow piece of parchment. It was sealed. The wax was black."

Leonardo was beside himself. That infuriating bit of paper—he was glad it was burned. Gladder even more so, supposing its loss may be the reason Ezio was still around. He was about to lie, to tell him he hadn't seen the letter. But it was only out of spite that Leonardo desired this, and he thought better of himself than that. Better of Ezio than to deserve being lied to, even though the man's creed apparently permitted him to give lies out to others. For a short while, Leonardo was silent, thinking on how best to reveal the letter's fate. Ezio, however, did not seem to deduce much from this silence, and continued to search the studio.

"...You will not find it here, my friend," said Leonardo. His voice was firm, nothing short of a fair amount of malice in the background.

Ezio looked back at him from the papers he was sifting through on top of one of Leonardo's horribly untidy work desks.

"Why not?" he asked simply, and moved on to the bookcase, which he proceeded to lift from the bottom, only enough to examine underneath.

"Because... Well you will not find it because last night I burned it," he stated, much less confidently than before (Leonardo had been wanting to relocate that bookcase, he recalled fleetingly, and he felt a split second's guilty pleasure watching Ezio lift the thing so easily while it was full of books and crafts).

Ezio dropped the bookcase back on its feet. The contents jostled. Ezio stood up and briskly stalked toward the culprit without expression, save for the crease of his brow when he massaged his right shoulder. Leonardo had never felt intimidated by the assassin, contrary to the rest of Venezia, but having just watched how effortlessly the bookcase yielded to the man's strength, in junction with the knowledge of having just wronged said man, Leonardo couldn't help but take a few steps back.

"...You _burned_ it?"

Leonardo could feel his shoulders caving in toward each other, and promptly squared them in defiance.

"I did. Ezio, it should be quite plain to both of us that you simply _do not need_ to be out and about in the condition you are in, and if you'd read what that wretched-"

"You _read_ it?" At last, Ezio showed a trace of emotion in his tone. His eyes widened and he looked disapproving—angry, even.

Now, for that part, Leonardo had not prepared a defense. As a result, he spoke quickly, and with less thought behind his words than he was usually so careful to provide."I- It-it doesn't matter. If you will not diminish your ridiculous task list, then I will do it for you. Your_ insistence_ upon being a hero _all _the time will surely be the death of you, and as your friend, I see it perfectly reasonable to-"

"It was important!" Ezio exclaimed at last. "That was business of the Order, and if Antonio did not see it right to tell _me _about the message's content, he would not have wanted anyone else to know it either!"

Leonardo started before Ezio had finished. "Antonio sent you as a courier, _of _the Order, completely blind to the information you were to deliver?!" The injustice of the past evening continued to grow more pronounced with every new fact he learned.

Then, Ezio did something he'd never done previously: he held out a finger of warning to his oldest friend. "I will _not_, question the motives of another assassin. There are far too few of us to begin mistrusting one another. Not at these stakes. As our correspondent you should have faith in his decisions, as well."

It was all too apparent, in that moment, that there was a blade hidden inside that wrist pointed at Leonardo. A blade created and donated by the artist himself.

"E- If- if-," he stuttered, quickly correcting his speech to something intelligible. "A-and leave you to- to be his workhorse?! The workhorse of the entire Order?! Do not think I know nothing of what you do to yourself at their bidding, _Ezio_, how careless you are of your body, how heedless they are to your well-being—it sickens me to know that you would arrive here, about ready to die, at the same time ready to spend your last minutes on some- some stupid delivery!" He waved his hands at the level of their chests, daring to lean forward to make his point.

Ezio looked thoroughly disgusted, as if he'd never been so deeply insulted.

But he spoke slowly, quelling the steam under his skin and conforming back to Ezio the assassin, replacing Ezio the friend of Leonardo da Vinci. "The Order has been working against the Templars much longer than you or I, Leonardo. I have merely continued with their progress. When I became part of them, I learned about everything they have sacrificed, everything they set up to resist Templar control, and to keep the people of Italia free to form their own thoughts and ideas. If you are under the impression that my work is _too challenging_ for me, then perhaps you are not well acquainted with the things the other assassins have had to do."

Leonardo chose to match Ezio's strained coolness. "This is not a game of comparison, Ezio. Do you mean to tell me that it is _regular_ for an assassin to cast away the very limits that one is bound to by being human?"

"_Yes._"

There was a palpable sense of finality in that answer. If it weren't for the seething, dictatorial way that Ezio had said it, Leonardo might have scoffed. But as it were, he did nothing but stare harshly in disbelief, straight into Ezio's eyes. Ezio returned the glare with one of his own, full of conviction.

The two remained that way for several seconds. While Leonardo was trying to figure out a way to articulate the absurdity in the statement, Ezio swung right, and headed for the door.

"What- Ezio, you aren't serious," Leonardo called after him, not noticing through his fury the way that the assassin relied upon the wooden handrail to hoist his left leg up the steps.

"I must go inform Antonio that his letter was intercepted. I am sorry. But it must be done," he replied in the very same flat, unreadable tone from earlier. "I have also been kept from my tracking of the Templars' visits to Venezia," he continued, "and I must restore the leads I had or else they will be lost." He nodded to Leonardo once he was at the front door to the studio, the characteristic shadows of his hood now effectively shielding his gaze from view. He turned the handle fixed into the ornate wood, and, halfway out the door, as a sort of afterthought, "I will buy for you a new rug, and pay for the supplies you used to heal me. _Grazie per la tua ospitalità._"

It felt like the very first punch that Leonardo had ever thrown. As he watched Ezio gasp, shudder, and buckle to the ground, he hoped in desperation that it would be his last. Two knuckles of his right hand were bleeding in a narrow trickle from where they connected with the bottom, backside of Ezio's cuirass, and Leonardo wasted no time dragging the assassin back inside, terrified of at least five things at once.


	7. Chapter 7

By the time Leonardo had dragged Ezio fully inside the studio and closed the door, both men were out of breath. Ezio grunted and staggered to his feet, accidentally putting weight on his left leg, causing himself to slip sideways into the closed door with a _thud._ What anyone outside the _bottega _must have thought of the scene, and now the noises just inside the door...

"_You-_" Ezio started, and finished, with a grunt, "_I- I h-have- I have killed m-men... f-f-for less... than that..._" It was obviously meant to sound intimidating, but the assassin was crumpling his way down the front door like a swatted fly.

Leonardo was bent double right beside him, acting rather darkly amused by the threat in order to hide the total anxiety he was feeling toward all of this.

"_Oh. _So now," he panted, "you mean to kill me?_ Gratitudine, anzi._"

Despite himself Ezio looked up to deliver a steely glare in Leonardo's direction. He planted his right fist against the door, and, against his better judgement, put his full weight against it and wrenched himself back to his feet (well, right foot). The action put immense pressure on his right shoulder, and on its immediate completion, again he clasped it with his left hand. Eyes locked furiously upon Leonardo, Ezio fumbled behind himself for the handle with his available hand.

"I'm afraid you won't be getting very far like this, _amico mio,_" Leonardo continued to joke, though he watched every one of the assassin's moves with rapt attention. His stomach felt as if it was waging war against him.

Ezio simply snorted and found the handle, edging himself away from the door before re-opening it. His pain had efficiently reduced him to neanderthal communication.

Then, right when the handle turned and the midday light seeped into the studio, Ezio chose to demonstrate exactly how formidable a liar he'd become over the years. Out from his sleepless, deadened shape struggling to support its own weight blossomed the straight-backed, smooth and wildly attractive form he assumed on his fateful entry into Leonardo's studio the previous night. Only the concealed groans of pain that winded him internally could be heard, before those were hushed too, and Ezio seemed born anew.

It was amazing—a skill that competed with the frightful display of last night's lapse of consciousness into the mysterious realm of eagle vision. Leonardo was all-too-aware that this was no new event, Ezio superficially morphing himself into perfect health, but, as with the other strange ability he'd witnessed earlier, it truly seemed mystical first-hand. Equally, the fact that the assassin _could _shield his condition so quickly raised a burning concern in the artist all over again.

"Ezio," he said with a meaningful palm on the man's arm, "-don't. _Rimani qui_."

But Ezio merely smiled politely and spoke with newfound calmness. "_Abbi cura di te_, Leonardo."

Leonardo, though feeling about to keel over in defeat to his body's disagreement with last night's festivity, took a step forward to speak his mind more adamantly. Before he could start, however, a tidy group of seven city guards ambled clunkily to block the artist and assassin from exiting any further. Leonardo split his attention just enough to notice Ezio drift closer to the door, back into the shadowy cover.

"You two," said the foremost guardsman in a heavy voice befitting to one who might fondly read himself government documents of the city before bed each night, "We've been called upon to... to investigate the scene here... described by members of the general public." He eyed the bloody mess that Leonardo seemed to forget he was. "...Care to explain yourselves?" He then tried to gain a look at Ezio, who had by this time successfully merged into the darkest corner of the doorway, just behind Leonardo.

"Scene? Eh-what scene?" Leonardo responded with surprise, looking hapless and just a touch guilty.

The guards in back shuffled amongst themselves, some straining to lean in and get a look inside the studio. The front guardsman raised an eyebrow. "We've just heard reports of a fight here. And unless you two run a _macelleria_ you'd better come with us." The guards assumed a partial defensive stance with their spears, maces and swords. The front guardsman clapped his left hand upon Leonardo's shoulder.

At that, Ezio emerged from his cool, discreet corner and plucked the guardsman's hand off with a casual, lofty air to his movements. He still wore the same, polite smile as he strode into plain sight in front of them all, emitting some magical aura that caused the group to ebb backward when he approached. "_Amici!_ Messer da Vinci and I were just talking about what it is, to be _respectful_-" he gave Leonardo a fast, harsh glance, "and get out of other people's ways while they are out on important business."

The artist could hardly believe his ears. His eyes bulged and he gaped at how openly Ezio seemed to be berating him in front of those he normally takes exceptional caution to avoid. Here and now, though, he quite obviously and heedlessly he threw his anonymity to the canals.

"Really there is no problem," Ezio went on with a sick, pleasant tone, "Not any_more_. He is quite lucky you have arrived, just now..." He then turned to face Leonardo, and—what was he _thinking?!_ Ezio leaned in and flicked out his right-hand hidden blade, though keeping it at his side with the knowledge that its sleek, metallic sound would speak just as much as its sight. "You would do well to avoid running into me again, _messere_."

The low rumble of Ezio's threat contrasted sharply with the sudden gasp and shriek of the front guardsman: "IT'S HIM! _IT'S THE ASSASSIN! _TO ARMS, MEN! TO _ARMS!_"

But before the guards could reassemble themselves to offensive formation, Ezio burst through them all at a sprint, knocking several to their backs before vaulting up the nearest building face. In the confusion nobody noticed how awkwardly the assassin climbed with his right arm.

Much like the citizens who did _not_ elect to run off in fear, Leonardo stood rooted to his door frame and boggled at the assassin as he disappeared, then watched the guards fumble after him fast as they could by the conventional means they were restricted to. His legs felt weak and untrustworthy. The churning in his stomach had turned icy. He felt a strong urge to back into his studio and lock the door. _This_, he felt assured, was intimidation. That well-learned sensation of fear and helplessness cascaded over Leonardo from the moment Ezio began accusing him. It took minutes since the incident that Leonardo's senses returned, and he carefully stepped back through the threshold of his home. He locked the door—in no great hurry, though—and kept diligent watch on its handle. Not out of irrational fear did he monitor the knob, but back within his small sanctuary he was able to organize his thoughts and emotions.

_How badly must I have offended him that he would put himself in danger?_ wondered Leonardo. The image of the assassin, leaning close with an exposed blade and malice in his voice, displayed itself fixedly in the artist's mind. He briefly considered that this terror must be absolutely magnified in the position of one of Ezio's real victims, feeling hunted, chased, without a clue as to which direction death would be delivered at any moment. He shuddered and retreated to his misplaced chair in front of the fireplace ashes, lifting it upright.

But he did not sit down. The copious _red_ blemishing the floor at once mentally slapped him to realize the grievous emergency at hand: this blood was still Ezio's blood. Ezio was running for his life outside, missing most of it. If he was caught, if he was hit, if he should fall, there would be no chance for his survival. Not by what Leonardo witnessed last night. The waning fear crawling through Leonardo's veins gripped him again, even more tightly now, such that without his notice, he brought his fingers lightly to his chest. His breath hitched—today would end the man he loved.

He ran to the coat rack near the kitchen, but he did not feel himself move. Still shoving a cloak over his shoulders to conceal the bloody shirt underneath, he bounded over the short steps back to his front door. He turned the handle, and essentially rammed his forehead into the door. _Locked_, he forgot in his haste, and uttered an obscene string of curses against no one in particular while he ripped the lock free, then fled the _bottega_ behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

Swirling, blindingly bright chimneys swam across his vision like great fireballs of stone. Rooftops rose and fell like they together composed an endless sea of midday yellows and reds, seeking with deadly tides to swallow Ezio whole. He felt unnaturally light. Felt the soles of his feet crunch tile and mortar at an astonishing pace but felt nothing more. Every time he leapt a gap in the roofs he was certain that his body was prepared to continue on without him. And every time, he would be viciously stuffed back into corporeality when he met the next roof in a shock so forceful he might have fallen off and felt the same. Even so, he was returned to his element. He existed for the rooftops and skies, and this advantage was the only thing he could now hold to spare his life.

A streak of black flashed across Ezio's vision so fast he wondered if his eyes hadn't shut without his command. It was testament to the severity of his dilapidated condition that the shape's accompanying sound only registered after the fact. He halted his momentum at the very next footfall and swerved a sudden, violent half circle where he stood as another arrow streaked across his chest, grazing it like a seductive finger of death. Without losing time to search for the archer responsible, Ezio finished his dodging twirl with two thin, needle-like knives unleashed from between his fingers in the direction from which the arrow was sprung. He likely would not have been able to see the archer if he tried, at any rate, but the tortured, gagging sound that reached him from worlds away assured him his knives had found their mark. Nearly in the same instant, he heard the high-pitched grind of a sword unsheathing behind him. The short cease in his escape had cost him.

With another sharp, clockwise skid on his heels he drew his own sword and slashed an uppercut with such impulse that it took the guard by complete surprise. The blades met, and the opposing sword flew from the guard's unready hand, clattering somewhere on the walkway below. He hardly had time to recognize his shock with a gasp before his neck was halfway severed from the rest of his body by a wide slice from the assassin in front. The boiling pain wracking Ezio's entire body seemed to take precedence over every sense except that which guided his blade. He distantly heard the simultaneous, horrified yelps from the guards further back, those fortunate enough to be slower runners than the first. The cries were closely followed by the loud, collective sound of weapons being drawn to battle.

He'd killed the first guard who assaulted him close-quarters by being the quicker draw. Now though, in the presence of a multitude of guards whose faces he was not conscious enough to count, his advantage was exhausted. His sword arm was heavy, all of the sudden. As was the rest of him, allowed now to reconstitute the weight that disappeared while Ezio had felt so in-flight. His only remaining stroke of luck was that his initial display had frightened the resolve out of his assailants. They took position to strike, but none would dare be the first to attack again. They advanced over top of their slain comrade, swords and maces kept defensively across their torsos while they quickly formed a loose encirclement around their target. Ezio had lost his chance to run. So, in alignment with the combat protocol ingrained into his essence as an assassin, he took to examining the guards for faults in their stance. He might have used this to trip one or two men out of his way for an unwieldy escape, but every guard to him appeared as a blurred blotch of greyish blue. Some blotches were even merging together as one, and Ezio was then quite sure that plan B was fruitless as the thought of taking them all on by force.

Desperate to strike before one of the guards mustered enough courage to launch first (assuredly Ezio would not be quick enough to block the attack, and failure would signal his true weakness to the rest of the lot, if not kill him then and there), he lashed his blade in another wild, horizontal slash. What he hoped to accomplish through this was a mystery to even the assassin himself, but the result fueled the guardsmen's fears, and those in reach of the blade staggered back off-balance. Rashly, Ezio assumed his scare-tactics' success in deflating the defense in front of him. He flung his left arm out at his side, loosing the trigger of the hidden blade just as his wrist made magnetic contact with an anonymous, sweaty, unprotected stretch of neck. He swung both of his arms back to propel himself forward in a great jump headfirst. His right's sword gouged through the lungs of a thick, bearded man with a mace, his left's blade tore through the neck of a young man of lean composure.

Again the assassin was flying. His greaves touched the roof as if it were a springboard, not a hot slab of stone. His back wrung him like the piercing sting of hot irons, and he still expected his left kneecap to burst from his flesh at any moment, but that strange, iconic feeling of weightlessness replaced the experience before that was coaxing him to drop and accept whatever fate he would be presented with. Another three steps and he would reach the end of this roof, pull his legs in as far as they could tuck, and cast himself off in a sideways roll optimized for distance while his cape whirled around him like the wings he was meant to have. Just another two steps, and— an agonizing wake of pain exploded from his right side, tunneling deep and gnashing through his frame with splintering claws that stole all feeling of bodily freedom he earned just moments ago. The crash of his body against the rooftop seemed like nothing in comparison with this pain. Indistinctly he cried out, convulsed, and shot his left arm to the source of what felt like the beginnings of servitude in hell. His fingers gingerly budged the stalk of the arrow piercing his side, but the touch evicted from him a savage tremor from head to toe. He wheezed sharply with eyes clamped shut and limbs contracted to himself. It was rare that Ezio abandoned chase, no matter which side of it he was on. But here he lay immobile, kept alive only by virtue of the malevolent gods bent on punishing him for evading his time to die rightfully, alongside his brothers almost ten years ago.

The sun pelted him mercilessly. Its beating upon his face dully alerted him that his hood was no longer shielding his head. His sword seemed to evaporate. Everything about him felt to be trapped in some kind of torturous inferno, both from within and external. He was certain that this would be his end: shot down on some Venetian rooftop, baking in the sun, killed by mere city guards, leaving the Assassin Order scarcely stronger than it used to be, failing to avenge his family's murder and displacement, his last words to Leonardo being a threat. _Tentai_, he consoled himself through his suffering, when the sun at last went out. Only, Ezio did not feel less conscious than he did seconds ago, much to his disappointment. He wondered if this was death—a continuation of the conscious, but absent the physical world. His welded eyelids squinted open for verification, and he discovered that the sun had not vanished, and nor had the city of Venezia.

One guard, doubtless the one instructed to take command in light of the death of his superiors in the squadron, was standing between the sun's rays and Ezio's defeated form. The silhouette stood perfectly still. The assassin did not struggle. He simply turned his head to more properly observe what might be his final sight, and noticed the slick, greasy sensation that trailed along his forehead at left, just above his temple. This meager motion must have stirred something in the black, amorphous shape of the guardsman, for he shouted something fuzzy and possibly foreign to his fellows in back. Three silhouettes in back walked ahead, until they departed Ezio's narrow periphery by stepping behind him. His arms, now clinging rather loosely to his sides, were removed without resistance, and pulled against his back. With vitality reserved somewhere infathomable, Ezio jerked forward, his boots scraping hard in desperation against the hot rooftop. He commanded, then pleaded for the unknown figures to stop touching his back. More unintelligible shouting. His arms pressed more harshly into his spine. A weak-ish and tearful groan of submission he'd have never matched to himself. It seemed an eternity, but at last the pressure on his back was gone, leaving him awake in ways he thought he'd prefer death to. The front guardsman stepped forward.

The figure muttered something. Ezio felt himself wrench with sobs that choked him more like successive eruptions of distorted reality than actual sobs. Then, the figure raised his weapon—mace, sword, sceptre, Ezio could not see—and brought it down like a symbol of divine justice. The assassin did not intend to protest this fate. Since he began counting off the ways he would leave the world on his death, Ezio was becoming less and less distressed by the matter. It was not at all that the assassin wished to die, no not at all. He wanted to purge Italia of the plague of the Templars, and his personal preference in living or dying at the end of the feat never truly mattered. But he did intend to reach the end of it. And perhaps it was this hidden, unconscious drive, or another facet of assassin instinct carried proudly through his blood, but soon as the guard's weapon sailed down, Ezio mechanically spun on his gnarled back to face the shadow head-on, struck out his feet against the man's belly, and flipped the both of them straight over the side of the roof.

. . . . .

Outside the air was blazing and bright, but Ezio's world was infinitely dark. He did not remember the landing, but he remembered the sweet, familiar feeling of freefall he so often embraced just before the pair plummeted into the dusty orange awning of a pottery merchant's stall. For a while, chained in this dark, warm unreality, the assassin started to believe this was another successful descent from a leap of faith, and he was peacefully surrounded in the soft, albeit prickly mound of hay he'd spent countless nights asleep in for the past ten years.

The droning mass of civilian screaming awoke him from this wishful dream. The dust was still heavy in the air from the volume of pottery destroyed in the crash. He squinted against the raging environment, and found himself unable to stand. He lifted his left leg, and fast discovered that the superhuman pains he had endured within the last twenty-four hours were not dreamed, either. He emitted a booming groan that barely broke above the shrieks of the crowd, and shuddered violently against what felt like a series of jagged boulders beneath his back. He aimed to shove himself away from these "rocks" with abruptness deceptive of the shattered mess he looked, but made yet another surprising discovery in turn: his wrists had been shackled tightly and closely to one another behind his lower back. His breathing went heavy and resumed its former tremble, and he flung himself bodily from the blurry wreckage. To his credit he caught the cobblestone with one foot (his right foot, at that) and though this leg was the healthier of the two, he stumbled quite badly and, inadvertently, ran directly into a post holding up another stall nearby. He came dangerously close to losing his balance yet again, as for the second time today he'd managed to ram a solid wood surface with his punctured right shoulder. His knees buckled, and he whimpered something resembling a cross between a dry cough and a restricted gasp for breath. With his head drooped low, his hoodless face was concealed in compensation by the pluming dust and the stray, blood-encrusted hair that twisted scraggily across his forehead where he realized he must have been bleeding.

He shifted against his restraints. _RUN_, he ordered himself, but his body refused bluntly, for he had not yet mastered standing. The pressurized pain welling inside the assassin had by now turned into a sort of melting sensation, not unlike the way he felt while entrapped only minutes—or was it?—ago by the circle of guards. _Focus on something_, he heard himself mumble, though within his mind the words were sculpted by the voice of Leonardo. It wasn't improbable that Ezio had acquired a degree of delirium at this point, suddenly smiling a faded, dying man's smile at the thought of Leonardo's voice. _How foolish I am_, he continued privately, _for ever thinking my judgement smarter than that of Leonardo da Vinci._

He was conflicted then, about his own mental state when he turned his head up level to the ground in search of a direction to attempt escape again, and spotted through the dry, thinning storm of rubble a most ashen version of the very man occupying his thoughts.

Neither man blinked; either shared the distinct notion that the other could not possibly be real. Not in the states they were in. The ambient, hazy drift of dust between them added to the mystical, ghostlike effect of the situation. Leonardo certainly looked his part—if Ezio could see more than the ambiguous outline and basic geometry of his friend, he could see how very white the artist had gone. His bright eyes were wrought with a terror that Ezio would never stand to allow to exist there, his posture was shaken, muscles tensed, and he quivered against the corner of the building he was clutching to as if it were a lifeboat in the darkest waters.

And if Ezio had appeared deathly yesterday, then right now he must have looked like one who had braved the dankest cells of purgatory and only in part emerged back to the living world. The resignation forced in to his shoulders from the shackles restraining his wrists complemented this depiction nicely. His feet were spread at shoulder-width, the only way the man was able to support himself. Both knees of his breeches were torn and sodden with blood, thick swatches of red bloomed from his back here and there, and the full length of the assassin's right bicep, from shoulder to elbow, was dappled with even more streams of red. The arrow protruding from his lower right side must have partially broken off during the fall, for it was now no more than a long, dark stick wedged firmly above Ezio's hip bone. The left of his head was splattered and his hair glued itself in knots to the spot, highlighted additionally by the line of blood still freshly trailing from his nose and across the prominent scar over the assassin's lips. He was coated in pasty, pale dirt all over.

The settling of the dust went noticed by neither of them. It was only the resurgence of clanging armour and weapons that stole away Ezio's attention, slowly, to the far end of the street where a hastily dispatched troop of guardsmen were rounding the corner. He watched them all numbly, when it finally dawned upon him that he was supposed to run. Not because he was hurt, not because he was hunted, but because it just seemed like the normal thing to do. He turned to follow through in his decision, when his first steps tied him back in a heavy stumble and he thrust his arms futilely away from each other. Having to catch himself yet again elicited a low hiss through his bloodied teeth. He glanced back once his balance recovered to its sub-par, but manageable level. The agglomerated shape of amorphous "guard" was on fast approach, when several more of these odd, black shapes dropped into the group from the roofs above. While Ezio was in no condition to recognize these shapes for the thieves they were, Leonardo witnessed the beginning of what would soon become even more bloodshed on one side of the fight or another. When he turned his flushed form back to Ezio, the assassin had achieved the sprint he was resolute to pry from himself. The artist gave chase automatically—but his legs were just about as functional as Ezio's were previously: he faltered on the first step, and was brought to hand and knee. For the second time today he watched the man escape in a status macabre and inhumane, this time somehow more damaged than before.


	9. Chapter 9

Leonardo spent the rest of that day—and most of the following night—searching for Ezio. Once his legs had regained a sense of mobility, once the clashing of guards had faded into the pattering of chase to the remaining thieves, he was gradually able to compute the scenario into a rational structure that allowed for the end of his horror-struck stagnation. All through the first day the artist pursued relentlessly. The whole of Venezia reverberated with bleakness and anxiety; it was as though someone had bleached the city of natural light and bathed it instead with some sick, draining pallor. And Leonardo had everywhere to look. One of the many troubles of befriending the assassin was his innate ability to remain unseen. Where most people would be narrrowed to a collection of likely hiding places, it remained entirely possible that Ezio could be anywhere at all. Leonardo had little hope that the assassin's grave condition would prove very limiting.

It was misting dawn on his return to the _bottega_. Having been thoroughly harassed by guards further from the scene (Leonardo appeared anything but innocent, running frantic with a wealth of red stains to his blouse) and having gained nothing valuable from everyone he had become panicked enough to ask, it was with solemn bereavement that Leonardo stepped over the threshold. It was still dark inside. He thought about lighting a lamp, indeed he located one with his eyes across the way, but he merely fixated on it a moment before lumbering over to his workbench instead. He felt tired. No, he felt _exhausted_, in more ways than one. But the idea that he might go occupy his clean, downy bed... It was the same reason that the bed was used so rarely on other occasions: it was plainly wrong for him to enjoy its comforts when something far more important was left undone. And Leonardo always had important work to do. Here, especially, the thought was repulsive. The one person that was able to answer his imperative demands for Ezio's location was one highly distressed-looking courtesan, who was so rattled that she insisted upon recounting to Leonardo the assassin's appearance rather than his direction. "_Era incatenato!_" she kept repeating. Infuriating as she was at the time, her terrified descriptions were now singeing the artist's mind, forcing him to relive the picture he received at the wreckage of this demolished animal, more red than white, and yes, his wrists bound tightly behind him.

He'd spent the last eight hours envisioning this form and every unspeakable death it could have endured since that moment, at any time, without Leonardo's knowing. As such, while the effect had now settled down to something like a continuous hollow shiver inside his chest, it also froze him into a quiet mental state of loss and defeat. _If he has not found refuge by now, I know that he is dead_, he thought to himself, but without much feeling. He stared blankly at pages of ratio calculations. _And in the state he was in,_ he continued somberly, _it is most likely he did not run long. _It was surprisingly easy for him to follow this logic now. Perhaps fueled by his grief, he concluded, _Ezio is most likely dead._

It was factual, the way it sounded in the artist's mind. He absently scuffled parchment this way and that with his fingers, imagining life without that subtle anticipation he always contained so well, that Ezio would appear unexpectedly at his doorstep with a fresh puzzle and his handsome grin. He calmly, emptily scolded himself for being so hesitant to advance on his affections, though he was still quite certain they would not have amounted to anything significant, anyway. Now that possibility was gone completely. If he had been more sympathetic, maybe... If he had somehow altered the past such that this would not have happened... As he silently rambled, he was brought to the point yesterday where their brief argument ended in threat. Even now it seemed strange. It was true that Leonardo had never so directly criticized the Order before, but still, he'd confidently considered it well beneath Ezio to use threat—weaponized threat, at that—in response. The event was not exactly sudden, though; the artist had picked up on the air of intimidation only minutes before the pair's exit from the studio. _I punched him_, Leonardo remembered. _Ironic, that the first strike I credit myself in so long would be my final goodbye to a man so accustomed to pain._ Drifting, he brought his head gently to the face of his desk, thinking himself asleep with the thought that the last touch he gave to his love was one of violence.

. . . . . .

A full month passed since the date of Ezio's disappearance. For the first week of it, Leonardo damned his commissions to hell and kept on his investigation, though his diligence and enthusiasm whittled away after that first night of failure. Anyone who knew anything simply repeated the same story, the same story that Leonardo needed no help in assuming in the first place: each interrogatee—well, each that could count as mildly successful—recounted fleeting images of the blood-drenched, staggering assassin with hands bound behind his back. Any directions recalled were essentially useless, Leonardo knew, but he always followed them, if not simply to keep himself going _somewhere_, even under plainly false hope. Several of this scant population of witnesses described the same sound of fireworks in the distance, oddly enough, and the artist so wished he could remember how to laugh, because the only possible inference to be made was that Ezio had somehow managed to fire the gun affixed to his vambrace. _But_ w_ho will be brash enough to test my inventions now?_

It was the last day of the first week when he received finality from a group of thieves. While Leonardo had before asked all the thieves he could (unwisely) corner, they would all deny they knew anything, or provide information Leonardo knew to be false, in the interest of taking payment. This time, however, it was a bluish, foggy morning and the gang of five, when approached, merely shuffled in discomfort at the question. Enlivened by this new reaction, the artist immediately offered them an overly-reasonable sum to stay and talk. Such was the way to motivate thieves, he learned. But even more strangely, the thief in front, dressed in a long scarf that served to wrap its way into a makeshift hood, refused the offer completely. Instead, he trod ahead a few steps, quiet steps, then spoke somberly, hands out, as if explaining a difficult concept to a young child. "The assassin is dead, my brother. I'm sorry."

The week after that, Leonardo slowly, emotionlessly resumed a portion of his regular tasks. He confided his despondency with no one, but sought solace in his life's purpose: to learn. Advance. Create. Sometimes he sketched, sometimes he added calculations to unfinished designs, sometimes he read old things he'd promised himself to when time permitted. He could not, though, produce ideas anew. He'd satisfied the couriers sent by patrons, haughty about their late commissions, by explaining concisely that someone dear to him had recently died. Each courier set off with full confidence in this account, for everything about Leonardo was convincing. He imagined he might take the news more elaborately, but instead of being filled with emotion—grief, rage, hatred, anything—he found himself quite thoroughly devoid. It should be said, though, that to say that Ezio's death was "news" would be rather kind, as up until the thief's confirmation, Leonardo was already expecting, but denying this conclusion.

By the third week, the artist's days were nearer to resuming a normal structure—well, normal for Leonardo, consisting of sporadic days-and-a-half dedicated to fleshing out some fantastical theory that dawned on him during some mundane event. He began leaving the studio occasionally for non-essential reasons, and even picked up an amount of progress on two of his five overdue portraits (out of frustration with finicky details of his much more exciting work, to be sure, but this was the only reason Leonardo ever actually completed these awful things). Correspondence was eventually resumed with the hospital-church in Florence where most of his human biological work was sadly left. By the end of the week, there was a definite gradual renewal in Leonardo's spirit, like life precariously returning to the decimated scene of natural disaster, determined to regenerate.

But despite all this, blood stains still tarnished the rolled-up rug leaning against the corner of the studio's farthest wall. A cut still existed jagged in the work desk where an assassin expected to lose a finger for a blade. Prototype weapon designs were still tucked away, drawn with precise measurements fitting Ezio's body alone. Pages of the codex were still, and probably would always be, missing. In an eventual attempt to remove himself from these constant reminders, Leonardo started preparations for a stay in Milan, where he always found inspiration in its purest form. It was past midnight and the air outside had chilled considerably from the muggy heat of daytime. A lightweight chest by the fireplace was half packed with supplies that no one but their owner would think necessary for a trip, and Leonardo had forgotten about them after realizing what was wrong with his idea of torsional stress as a motor source for automated movement. He was recording these musings in the corresponding backward-script sheaf of papers, when a soft, familiar sound rang from the cramped upper room used both for sleeping and storage. Gentle though it was, it resounded in him with such vivid memory that it seemed to echo above the cracking of the fire in the hearth. He would have liked to ignore it, but it was so characteristic, so exact to the sound he used to hear, that the turmoil it stirred inside him physically prevented him from resuming another line of thought. It was the subtle, finely tuned thumping pattern on top of his roof that used to warn Leonardo of a coming visit from the only person who could manage such steps. The sound was one in the special collection of signals to the assassin's presence undetectable by anyone—anyone except Leonardo, whose senses were trained above the rest to pinpoint inarticulable detail. Leonardo often wondered if the assassin was so skilled that he could mute even these slightest clues, and that he was purposefully adjusting himself to a level he knew only Leonardo would perceive. Involuntarily drifting in reminiscence, the artist recalled opposite scenarios, when he would hear thundering treads from overhead. These he took to mean, "_Don't go outside._"

He scribbled unimportantly, his mind bloated with tenacity to forget, and with memories aching to be recalled. He was so absorbed, that the bird-like rapping on the upper floor window went unattended-to. The image of their first meeting came to the forefront of his recollection, perhaps out of intuitive habit, to understand complexities through their fundamental components. At the time he saw Ezio as a handsome, rich man's son, whining to his mother when he thought none else could hear. Nothing more. It was thus more intriguing than concerning, when the boy came to Leonardo's studio in Florence after the murder of his father and brothers. Come to think of it, Leonardo observed, the subject was never resumed after that night. He should have pursued it. Ezio was never one to talk at length of issues incapable of being resolved through action, but still, maybe if simply guided, gently, in the right directions of conversation... _I should have done _this, _I should have said _that, Leonardo mocked himself internally. It was a slippery slope that he discovered—years ago, it felt—was all-too-easy to fall down. His dreaming was cut short when the upstairs window-tapping abruptly turned into the rough, urgent sound of the window being forced open from the outside.

He broke from his scribbling with a start, accidentally snapping the thin, delicate tip of his pen as it pierced the paper and hit hard wood. The burglar had tapped before to test the occupancy of the abode, and seemingly decided the home was safe to enter. Leonardo doubted there would be anything upstairs of immediately recognizable value, especially buried as everything up there was in fragmented projects and useless gifts from old patrons he always felt too guilty to throw away. In fact, Leonardo secretly hoped the intruder _would _clear the room a bit for him, so he'd be spared the indecision about getting rid of things himself. Turning a deaf ear, he stood to recover a new nib for his pen upon realizing the former one's condition. Pens, quills and such related parts were generally kept in the drawer of his secondary work desk, and just as he slid his fingers through the ink-stained mess inside, he heard a crystalline shattering sound emanate from the upstairs room, followed by a disorderly series of dragging noises and a metallic clatter. Confrontation was the last thing that Leonardo would ask for out of the burglary, but he felt a twinge of impatience at the knowledge that his affects were being broken, unwanted even as they were.

But what to do? Most burglars would run on sight of the owner of an invaded home, but what if this one recognized the artist's firm refusal to fight? Would they take the advantage? A much worse situation sprang to Leonardo's imagination: this burglar could be no burglar at all, but someone with a goal. Someone who knew of the encrypted research strewn throughout the _bottega_, and was sent to retrieve it at any cost. Certainly, once the Templars learned of the great loss of the Assassins, their morale would swell to new heights. Suddenly Leonardo felt much more comfortable with allowing the upstairs contents to be done away with in whatever manner they would. Any worthwhile research was kept camouflaged among the clutter in the main room, anyway, but there was still the possibility that, should this person indeed have the interest, they might extend their search out from the upper room upon noticing its use as a store for cast-off ideas. He muddled through these predictive avenues while he located and attached another nib to his pen. With resolution then, setting the utensil down on top of his papers, he slinked up the hollow wooden stairs. Halfway there, he was stricken with a thought. After a silent journey back to the fire-lit main room, Leonardo returned to the staircase with the fire poker in hand—a last minute addition for the sake of trying on a more guarded appearance, just in case. How Ezio could create the illusion that these stairs were silent was yet another mystery that Leonardo knew, with a surge of affliction, he would never solve.

The sounds within the room became more pronounced the further the artist climbed. Mostly scuffing and shuffling noises, like some great tarp was scraping across all four walls. The accompanying grunts and the occasional seethe were consequently masked—that is, until just the moment when Leonardo reached the narrow door. The tarp-like sounds ceased with one final _slump_, and the stranger inside gave a husky sigh (a man, then, Leonardo surmised). It simply was not a function enabled within Leonardo's personality to react quick-wittedly in situations of hostility even at these low levels, and so he did nothing but stand by idly to infer more traits of the unwelcome visitor opposite the wall. But the doorknob suddenly turned. With a fright and a mental leap from nowhere, Leonardo struck out and locked the door before it could open in completion, fire poker held awkwardly as its wielder. Silence. A _very _uncomfortable hesitation. The knob gave two sharp, futile twists, and again became dormant. _Well the burglar will obviously know I am here now, so I must choose my next actions carefully_, Leonardo reasoned, but in truth did not execute any such actions.

"_Apri-_" the stranger started, calmly.

"I ask that you leave this place in the method that you came by, or I must warn you that I will fetch the guards," interrupted Leonardo.

"You shouldn't really-" retorted the disembodied voice with a definite air of humour this time, but Leonardo reinforced his authority:

"I have asked you politely. If you will not leave now, I will be forced to act against you. This- this will be your final warning."

He felt a degree of humiliation making threats, knowing how limp they must sound in his underconfident voice. He deeply wished that the ordeal would progress no further, that the burglar would simply give up and that he would not have to race into the streets for the guards while simultaneously abandoning his home and exposing himself to the vantage of the open window the burglar had made for himself. So Leonardo waited. The man behind the door waited. All again was still and silent, save for the healthy fire raging from across the way. But finally,

"_Apri la porta_, Leonardo."

Prior to this moment, Leonardo registered little more than the low tones of the intruder's voice, but upon hearing his name, the veil fell, and each clue of the evening fell into place. However, this epiphany was flawed: all signs pointed toward the miracle he so desperately, irrationally desired, yet it could not be true, for Ezio had died just over a month ago. Apparently the choking quiet of anticipation did not suit the voice, and so it continued.

"Leonardo, _apri la porta_." It now sounded distinctly more annoyed than entertained. "Please do not call the guards. It's me, Ezio. Don't you recognize my voice? Or shall I start guessing passwords?"

It took several more seconds, but with unthinking reaction, the artist unlocked the door.

Casual, striking, and remarkably clean, an utterly alive Ezio Auditore exited through the passageway. His immaculate, halo-like hood was drawn over his head, and as he was looking down while moving to close the door behind him, it was not until he was prevented from walking further ahead that he looked up, and Leonardo saw his face: warm. There was no trace of the frantic, white-flushed, gore-spattered appearance that had affixed itself to the forefront of the artist's mind for weeks, only the dazzling, energetic face that preceded such nightmares. The contrast was so violent that Leonardo distantly, but seriously, contemplated the possibility of hallucination.

Ezio was quick to note the stark disbelief in his oldest friend; it was as if some invisible demon had swept away his soul and forgotten to take the body along with it. The assassin looked on him with sudden concern.

"Leonardo? Leonardo what is wrong? What has happened while I was away?" He took hold of Leonardo's upper arm to shake him from his pale trance: meaningful, but undoubtedly gentle.

The weight of Ezio's touch helped to dispel a part of the postulated illusion, but the vastness of the grief, memories, self-reassurance and regret experienced through the past month could not so easily be overcome just yet. The concern in Ezio's dark eyes seemed to acclimate to something like fear. He took both Leonardo's arms in his grip, and advanced a step forward as if he believed he might break this curse if he just looked hard enough into the other man.

"Leonardo, you- _Dimmi cos'è successo!_" He released Leonardo's left arm just briefly enough to throw back the hood from his head, perhaps to more effectively pierce the artist's catalepsy with his gaze. It did not occur to him that Leonardo, of all people, would presume him dead for so long. He would have launched himself over the platform's railing in search of the nearest doctor, but to his relief, a roughened hand found movement and raised itself toward Ezio's face. It was quite odd to seek validation in this, but Leonardo's fingers stopped upon the long, old scar marred across the assassin's lips. It was not a reasoned choice of artifact, per se, but there was something acutely defining about this particular feature, during this particular moment. He had seen no other man or woman with such a scar, but surely Leonardo had considered most things about Ezio defiantly unique. Nonetheless, he brought his fingers down along its raised length, saw how it disappeared closer into the lips and reappeared in full force further out, how it tapered away with a blank, unpolished line where the stubble ought to be completed like the rest of it decorating Ezio's face. He felt himself internally admitting, at last, that he had been gravely misinformed.

Ezio, on the other hand, was rather taken aback. He of course knew nothing of the situation that Lenoardo did, and thought it very strange indeed that the man could be so frightening and confusing in so many different ways. This territory was most unfamiliar to him, and he was petrified with the idea that the artist was going to kiss him any second. Above all he just wanted answers, to know what exactly was producing this overall absurd behaviour, but at the same time he was positively rooted where he was, alert to the fact that Leonardo could kiss him, and that that could be... okay. Just okay. Ezio's emotional range would likely never be complex enough to sift a definite partisanship here from the sheer amount of every other abnormality going on now.


	10. Chapter 10

Ezio blinked, the rest of him stiff with puzzlement and apprehension. Leonardo then removed his eyes from the assassin's lips and set them to meet Ezio's stare. Ezio decided he should say something quickly, as the situation was getting _far _too intimate and he still had doubts about his friend's mental state. To his surprise, though, Leonardo took initiative and seized the assassin, all at once, nearly toppling them both backward with the immense force he mustered in squeezing their torsos together. Ezio lurched, tripped, and gripped the handrail behind Leonardo to prevent them both from falling down the old wooden steps. Leonardo buried his face into the side of Ezio's neck, and breathed in there deeply, exhaling in a broken, fragile sigh. The discomfort of the armour jabbing against him had never seemed so negligible. All of this put Ezio on high alarm.

"_Calmati. _You _must _tell me what has happened, _amico mio_, or there is nothing I can do to help you. Are you listening to me?"

Wrenching himself from Leonardo's grip, he kept their embrace only by balancing Leonardo's forearms gently atop his own, holding the other man's tightly at the joints of his arms. Ezio was leaned forward between them in concern, willing Leonardo's head not to droop down as it did. He heard the artist sniff away some unseen tears, and felt his own fingers strengthen; there was always something about Leonardo's distress that gave him the urge to fight harder.

With another deep breath that quavered as he exhaled, Leonardo commanded himself to speak. His voice was trimmed with indirect frustration where it was not overtaken by disallowed sobbing.

"Ezio... _Ho pensato che fossi morta. Per-per settimane, _I thought..."

He watched his fingers stroke down the new linen that bunched itself at Ezio's elbows before feeding into his vambraces. He couldn't quite configure what anything meant. Before now he was nearing a better and better acceptance to living as he did before the assassin and his Order became part of his life. It all felt so real—too real, in fact—that he did not know which life seemed more dream-like than the other. Lost to his tearful deciphering, he gave a start and his shoulders jumped when he felt the leathery cestus of Ezio's palm cradle the left of his freckled face. He looked up instantly. Ezio was closer than he had distanced them previously, and he poured his hurt expression over Leonardo's face.

"_Non... _No Leonardo—why would you believe that? I would have- someone would have told you if I died!"

"And-" Leonardo cut off with an involuntary, dry sob, "And someone _did! _Don't you under_stand_, Ezio?! I looked for you! I looked everywhere!" The emotion that at last began to burn through his shroud of disbelief came into the form of anger. Ezio must have sensed it brewing, for he retracted his palm and let Leonardo's arms steal themselves away. "_Fanculo- _do you not remember a thing from the day that you left?! You would have done better to send someone to tell me you were _alive!_"

Ezio did not, in truth, remember much of the day he left Leonardo's _bottega_, except for the suffocating measure of pain he recalled, requiring conscious effort to suppress. He chose to avert discussion to the first subject, afraid that the current direction might cause him to lapse back. All month since the incident he'd been struggling less against his physical recovery, but much more so against the insistent recollection of the pain he went though. Those were new heights of suffering, drawn out longer and more consecutively than he'd ever experienced. Ghosts of the days since the Basilica haunted him without relent, and he'd been working to keep them bottled away safely with his other buried memories, too debilitating to relive.

"Tell me who told you I was dead," he demanded, stubborn to hang on to an atmosphere of control.

"A thief. A man with a hood. What does it matter? A much more fruitful explanation would be one that details how it is that he was incorrect!"

Ezio considered. He stayed with the thieves in their stronghold in San Polo for the weeks he was told proceeded his grisly, mutilated arrival, but he did not remember being conscious for much of the time in the week after. If it was a thief who had told the lie, it could have been on Antonio's orders. _Yes_, Ezio thought_, he would have told the thieves to spread word that I was dead. All the better to prevent the Templars from seeking me out while I was injured. All the better to lower their guard._

"Leo, I think that Antonio may have wanted everyone in Venezia to think I was dead. I think he ordered his thieves to say so. There have been many Templars passing in and out of the city, and if they got word that I was out of the way, they might be less careful about their plans. It would also stop them from trying to finish me off."

Ezio's tone remained within the range used often for business, when he would discuss plans and operations with a fellow assassin. Leonardo noticed the lack of sympathy, and found it infuriating. He was finding everything about Ezio infuriating.

"A wise theory, to be sure, my friend. But like I said, it doesn't matter. Tell me what happened after you ran off from here the last time. It is the least you can do for me, at present," Leonardo scolded with his arms crossed. The way things were depicted to him, Ezio simply ran off that day, lying about his recovery, making unnecessary and very frightening threats, exaggerating about the lengths that assassins were committed to go to in order to defend his own abuse at the hands of the elder members of the Order. And on top of all this, Ezio had not bothered to send apology nor reassurance.

"I do not remember very much about that day," said Ezio, flatly. It was true. But it was not true. The memories existed somewhere, he knew—somewhere in the same hellish pit where he smothered similar traumatic memories.

"You don't? Convenient. How very convenient for you." He turned and walked briskly down the steps, looking at his partially-packed chest and imagining himself in Milan. Ezio stayed put and watched him go.

"It- it's not like that! Leonardo!" he whined, placing both hands upon the wood railing and glaring over at him.

"Not like what? Do you remember all of the sudden? Forgive me if I ask too much, _amico mio_, when I admit that I worried for you all this time, despite what you put me through each time we meet."

That last sentence did not sound the way that Leonardo had meant it to. Obviously he delighted in their meetings, very much so, but in his anger he extracted from them his own lingering feelings of futile longing and the continuous fear for Ezio's life. Ezio visibly took these words to heart, Leonardo dismayed, because on hearing them the assassin turned slowly to the side, folded his hands delicately in front of his abdomen, and appeared to be waiting for them to bring him something to respond with. Leonardo almost moved to retract his statement, but he did not. He knew it was harsh, but as he watched Ezio fidget uncomfortably, there was a sick satisfaction in knowing that he for once had him cornered. And perhaps some of whatever he was feeling might hint at the despair that the artist endured for far too long.

"I- ah- _M-mi...,_" Ezio started, thinking he should just keep his hood up at all times from now on. "I-if you- I mean, if you really want me to-" He glanced up in a last attempt to dissuade Leonardo's request, only to see that the man had taken an interest, and now stood attentively with his arms still folded, in front of the fireplace.

"Yes, well- I see," he continued to procrastinate, ambling his way down the stairs with his gaze again fixed upon the hands he was distracting himself with.

He knew that Leonardo was probably unaware of the reasons that Ezio was so deterred from reliving past experiences, but considering what he just heard from said man, he was reminded of how incredibly little right he had to be denying him anything at all. And it was correct, Ezio agreed, that he had always been extremely selfish in regards to the grief he knew he caused Leonardo most visits. Maybe it would have been better, in the long run, if Leonardo was left to think the assassin dead. At any rate, Ezio slowed his pace about the room even more, and began to force his way into his well-protected mental cellar of demons.

His heart was racing much faster than his feet while he walked. "I... Ah, well to start, I went to the roofs. I remember that part. I... I was running, and- and there were guards that were in a circle around me—I was stopped by the archers, I-I think, yes—but I- but I broke free of them, and then I felt-" He stopped a moment and felt an absent hand rub against the armour and cloth concealing the bluish mark above his hip where the arrow had punctured through. Still, while he battled within himself a plea to stop allowing the pain to return, he continued on. "It- ah, th-there was an arrow, here, and I fell..."

Something was definitely wrong. Leonardo was fast to pick up on the unnatural habits that Ezio adopted as he explained (poorly, though it was). The assassin never shook. Not unless he was plainly injured, that is, but even then as he'd demonstrated before, he could effectively hide it from view whenever he pleased. At times he would pace nervously, before especially important missions, but the only time that Leonardo could match with this unwarranted trembling was the time before the second trial of the invasion of the Palazzo Ducale: the time after the first gruesome failure of the flying machine.

"...They—_la guardia—_took my arms and they..." The hand over Ezio's arrow wound traveled closer to his back, and he finally stopped walking altogether. He seemed to stare into nothingness, for a time, and Leonardo suddenly worried that he was again subsumed by his own second vision.

"Ezio...?" he called out cautiously, bringing a foot forward to instinctively examine the man's condition. This seemed to reignite the doused sense of reality in Ezio, and he began his story again.

"Uh, I am sorry," he began. He was about to halt himself with an easy lie, persuading Leonardo that he could not remember more, but by now that was completely false. Besides, Ezio did not forget his promise to withhold no information that Leonardo wanted to hear. "I-th-the guards were restraining my hands, I suppose... and... one—I think it was a guard, at least—one of them was going to kill me. Well, perhaps not, I- I mean I just—I-I don't... know... And then I fell off the roof."

Leonardo was precariously approaching him now, wanting him to stop and continue at the same time. Ezio had resumed his pacing in anxiety, however, and there was no simple way to take this gently while he remained so uncatchable.

"I woke up, and...," he trailed off, unable to functionally immerse himself in the memory of waking up to screams and dust, blood in his mouth and the feeling of grinding cogs and barbed metal consuming him from head to toe. He found himself standing beside one of Leonardo's work benches, and he mindlessly, infantly, prodded the mysterious measurement tools. Unblinking, he scratched a nail into the desk and watched it score. In the very least, he paused long enough for Leonardo to approach at the slow, quiet rate that the artist intuitively knew was necessary.

"Are you all right, my friend?" Leonardo questioned with a light touch to Ezio's bicep. This time it was Ezio who frightened from his trance.

"Yes. _S__ì_," he answered too quickly, but turned the desk's chair to himself and sat down. "Right. Ah, where was I..."

"You woke up after you fell from the roof. Are you certain you feel all right now? Is something bothering you?"

"No." It would be a lifetime before Ezio intentionally brought unease to Leonardo once again; there were clearly a hundred men's horrors plaguing him now, but for the time being, his tenacity to keep Leonardo blissfully ignorant of his pains overrode his older decision to stop lying. "I woke from the roof—I mean, I woke from... Wherever it was that I woke up from..." His eyebrows knitted in sincere confusion. "A-anyway, the next thing I remember I was running... I-I couldn't climb, because my- I could not use my hands... But I set off your gun while I was trying to break free. I remember it because it was very loud." Leonardo knelt beside the stammering assassin, nodding in encouragement at the validation of his inference that the alerted townsfolk were not hearing off-season fireworks. It was also worthy to note, Leonardo detected, that Ezio still did not consider the firearm attachment his own.

"I fell into a canal after that. I-"

"You _what?!_" Leonardo interjected. It was one thing for anybody to survive the severe maiming he witnessed one month ago, but only by God's will would someone survive after the infection assured by the filth in the Venetian canals, provided that he did not drown first without use of his arms.

"I fell into a canal. The sound was loud and I lost track of where I was running," Ezio repeated bluntly.

"C-continue," Leonardo commanded, waving off his previous interruption with unhidden incredulity.

"...Everything was very... Cold. B-but it was nice, I guess. I don't know. I thought... Ah, nevermind. I woke up again in the Palazzo Ducale with the thieves and Antonio. La Volpe was there. Teodora- I could not hear them well, but they... Brought me to this room where..." He moved his lips to speak again, but soon stopped, and bore his eyes into the floor as before. This time though, he did not need Leonardo to rouse him, for he gave a single, great shiver and took a large inhale of midnight air. Leonardo reached to divert Ezio's attention, but the worst had already begun: bringing his hands to his face, Ezio moved them up and down once, settling them over his eyes with a long-delayed exhale. His shoulders bunched with the shift and clank of his metallic affects, and he rested his elbows atop his knees. Leonardo decided it was time to stop. Rage abandoned awhile back, he briefly combed through Ezio's hair, and kept that hand nearby on his love's shoulder, while the other he laid upon the right forearm's vambrace.

"You may stop now, Ezio. I see that it is hurting you to remember. But I thank you for telling me what happened from your end of things. Am I correct in assuming that you have been tended to by the assassins and thieves you met in the Palazzo Ducale?"

He thought his words were considerate enough, but Ezio would not acknowledge them.

"..Ezio."

Nothing.

"...Ezio? Listen to me. It is in the past now. I know it does not seem like it, but you must accept this."

At that, Leonardo received a powerful sniff in response, and Ezio let down his hands in closure. His eyes were definitely reddened and glassy, but all the same determined to heed Leonardo's advice. He nodded.

"I know. I am sorry."

"Everything is quite all right. I forgive you. I was upset before, but now I understand that it was not within your capacity to inform me of your well-being."

"No, that is not what I meant," Ezio started to clarify, and he stood from the chair, feeling dreadfully aged. He cleared his throat. "I am sorry that I burden you with the troubles that come with being involved with the Order. I- actually, no, I do not mean that either. I should take full responsibility, disregarding my affiliations, for making your time unpleasant. I have always asked for your help, and it has always been given to me. ...I suppose I could say that there are many things that I have taken for granted. I do not wish to burden you further. You really are the most generous person I have met, Leonardo—and the most brilliant," he added with a chuckle, "and I am ashamed that I never told you until now. I have often worried that I would never be able to."

It was a lot for one man to sort through. Leonardo silently prayed for the courage to say something similar, give or take a few words here and there, because he thought it might complement nicely to confess his greater feelings for the assassin, while the topic of resigning old feelings away was fresh in the conversation. But as _always_, Ezio broke the moment with the raising of his hood, and a sentence that blew any sentiment from the room:

"I bought you a rug."

It honestly made no sense, and it irritated Leonardo that Ezio would choose now to say it when he thought that the moment could otherwise be occupied with what he considered a very important confession.

"You- _why?_" Leonardo replied as he stood, annoyance as much as confusion evident in his tone.

"Because my blood has soiled your last one. I'd like to replace anything else I might have tarnished, too, in my time knowing you. Please let me know what I can do. I will trouble you no more once you are satisfied I have returned your normal life as far as I can."

The most disconcerting part about the guarantee was certainly the cordial way in which it was presented. It was the demeanor of acquaintanceship, just like the patronage Leonardo was accustomed to with the messages sent by people from all over who would request his creative services. Ezio was proposing in earnest to make his amends and go, as if the pair had _not _spent the last ten years inextricably morphing each others' fates. But then again, through all those years this category of things was nothing new; Ezio could be counted on to grapple complicated problems like any beast, hoisting them out the nearest window when they seemed too difficult to disentangle. It was part of what made him such a formidable assassin.

Leonardo sighed. He even shook his head. _How very different we are, my love,_ he thought to himself. "Go on then, get the rug and place it here—" he gestured to the empty spot in front of the fire place where the previous rug had lain, "—and we can sort this out like grown men. I'll make us some tea."


	11. Chapter 11

Earthen reds and whites wound through the elegant pattern of the rug rolled out before Leonardo's fireplace. This one was slightly larger than its ruined predecessor, and Ezio took extra care to rearrange the easels, desk, chairs, and various standing equipment as minimally as possible to accommodate the new size. Finished with his task before Leonardo had finished the tea, he waited patiently—at first. Years ago Ezio would be quite content to loaf around, wasting time peacefully, even actively avoiding certain authority figures he knew would always put him to work. Now, however, the stillness was unnerving. He counted his throwing knives twice. He read the titles of Leonardo's books. He mentally organized his task list, re-buckled his left boot, and polished each hidden blade in turn with the rich Venetian cape over his shoulder. All the while, he distractedly sucked at the scar over his lips—a habit that was broken long, long ago after the first couple weeks since receiving the injury. Because Leonardo had just tonight found it so intriguing, though, suddenly Ezio did too.

The water was boiling inside the kettle sitting above the flames. Ezio moved to remove it, but quickly stayed his hand. Was it right of him to intervene? He had made the decision to surrender whatever relationship it was that he felt allowed him to freely poke about Leonardo's things, and though this was the mere act of touching a kettle, Ezio found himself unsure. This house should be treated as that of an honourable host. No more curious meandering on his part, nothing to show disrespect. _Touch nothing_, his father used to warn he and his brothers when invited to the manors of wealthy merchant families. Fortunately, Leonardo did not seem to think it strange to return to the boiling kettle when he entered the main room, carrying the collected herbs from the dried branches hanging above his kitchen window. He behaved rather calmly, in fact, while Ezio's formal presence was anything but. The tea was stirred and steeped. Leonardo observed the new rug's aesthetics, and Ezio fretted over whether or not it was polite that he fractionally adjusted some furniture to make room.

Overall it was nice, the artist concluded: he thought the reds were subdued enough to both contrast with and add to the cream-tinted whiteness, and that the design's symmetry was attractive. It was arguably a touch too lavish for his personal tastes, but then again it was humourously clear just who had decided this rug was best. Even the scheme of red and white pointed to the stoic assassin at left. And only someone of noble blood would choose anything white to sit on the floor, Leonardo noticed. It was endearing, now that he considered it, just how obviously the rug correlated with its purchaser. The smile growing on his face only served to inflate Ezio's over-concern.

"...Do you like it?" he began, then remembered the artist's kind personality. "Please tell me if you want a different one. It would be no trouble to me."

Finicky as Leonardo was where his crafts were concerned, he was surprisingly impartial to the décor of his own accommodation. And even if the rug _had_ managed to offend him in some spectacular way, he had a hard time believing that it was "no trouble" for the assassin to have made his way across Venezia and through a small window while carrying something this size. It certainly explained the ruckus in the upstairs room, at least.

"I do. I do. But we should see if it provides comfort, for all its fine detail."

Leonardo took the cups and kettle from where they sat together, and settled himself down upon the rug. The apprehension Ezio felt for his friend's judgement was totally undetectable.

"Sit, if you would. It is a rounded decision you've made in choosing this."

He gestured to the empty, clean stretch of rug next to himself. Ezio would have found a chair, as old instinct told him was correct to do, but Leonardo plainly indicated the floor, and so Ezio complied without question. Before he did, though, he thought it wise to set aside his two more lethal, exposed components—his sword and knife were drawn and laid noiselessly at the foot of the rug. He seated himself at a distance from the artist, extremely cautious of his next words.

"Does it suit you?" he asked. There. Nothing argumentative, subjective, or assuming.

"It is very soft indeed. Many artisans will sacrifice form for function, or the other way around, so I am afraid you must have spent a small fortune to have discovered someone who is competent in achieving both."

Ezio was pleased. He hoped the conversation would surround qualities of rugs for as long as possible. "You are a practical man. But you are also _uomo delle arti_. I am glad to hear that it serves your needs."

Leonardo poured their tea in the time it took for his approval to be made solid in the silence. Holding out the first cup to his companion, he introduced a topic just a step closer to the heart of the matter:

"How are your injuries? If I am honest," he admitted as Ezio gingerly accepted the cup from his grasp, "I am amazed you are alive."

"If _I _am honest, Leonardo...," he mused, pausing at length to stare thoughtfully into his tea from under the shade of his hood, "...It... I think I will be fine."

"Are you in pain?" It seemed silly to have to ask so directly, but the assassin was infinitely unyielding in his creative avenues for avoiding discussion having to do with himself. It caught Ezio off guard. In response, he sunk his posture a degree further toward the tea in his right hand, and Leonardo almost wondered if he would try to drown in it.

"...Not very much. I manage it when it is necessary."

_Oddio, he _manages _it. _"I wouldn't suppose I should take this to mean you have fallen back into your habit of eliminating symptoms...?"

Ezio could not think of a non-lying counterstatement before Leonardo went on without him.

"I would like to see your condition. I must know if you have allowed yourself to be properly cared for." _Or if the Order has allowed it_, he spitefully annotated. But he knew that ill mention of the Order was essentially a switch for the destruction of any pleasantries maintained thus far.

He expected the further hesitation that followed this request. The assassin was surely aiming to gain nothing but a list of things to buy in replacement for Leonardo's studio, and the artist's noncompliance was surely less than amicable. And so the fire hissed and popped uninterrupted in the dead of night. In this quiet space to mull over one's thoughts, Leonardo envisioned the last time he sat in front of the hearth on a rug with Ezio, and the lurid gore that he would never forget for as long as he lived. Screaming, living, teeth-gritting gore visited him again; not the scientific, complacent gore of anatomical study. He looked back to Ezio, and thought it near impossible for this closed, humbled shape to have been so monstrously contorted only one month ago.

Almost as if he could sense Leonardo's gaze, Ezio broke his contemplation.

"All right," he said to his tea. Of course he had a dozen reasons or more to dispute the suggestion, but it was no longer within his rights to object. He would do as he was told. He would suffer in whatever way the artist would have him. Carefully he placed the untouched drink on the plush in front of himself, and went straight to work dismantling the extensive sequence of fastenings on his armour.

Leonardo was only half surprised by the lack of restraint in Ezio's response. He could feel the guilt filling the room, emanating from the man perhaps more perceptibly than the sounds of unclasping leather and metal. All the same, he sipped his tea peacefully as he watched the assassin disrobe. He was always tacitly amused by the intricacies of the procedure, but now kept his mind sharp so as not to miss any hints of discomfort or stiffness—the same, unspoken examination of habit. Pleasantly, there was nothing of the kind, save for the brief pause that preceded the sacrifice of the hood and its attached tunic. If Leonardo was not so absorbed in the new display of bandaging that coiled up Ezio's torso, he might have noted that the tunic was now sewn tightly where he hastily slit it through one month ago. Soon, the entire ensemble was piled neatly, almost ceremoniously, off to the side of the rug.

It was like another layer of clothing, the thickness of bandaging winding its way up from waist to chest, binding the last of itself around Ezio's right shoulder. The absence of red staining was most welcomed by the artist. Sick, violet contusions peaked from the top of the bandages where they stopped at Ezio's shoulder blades, but otherwise nothing appeared amiss. The skill of the actual wrapping seemed professional enough for Leonardo's standards. Everything, to his satisfaction, was in order. Still, for some reason Ezio's expression while he diligently studied the floor was... apologetic? Even when Leonardo stood to gain a comprehensive perspective of the handiwork, the assassin did not stir. He raised his arms when asked to. And after a third look from all sides, Leonardo returned to his place.

"I am relieved. The quality of your treatment is good. Please be sure to keep up to date with regular changing of your bandages, though. I can imagine that healing will take longer while you continue to wrestle the city as you do normally." He gave his voice a positive inclination, hoping to signal good will back into the space. Ezio nodded. The fire's rumbling resumed center stage.

"...It is courteous of you to visit, I should tell you. I know that you did not wish to meet me again after our last encounter," Leonardo added, trying to provoke a conversation that was more than one-sided.

He was awarded more than he anticipated. For a short while Ezio looked to be thinking quite hard on this, and then he turned to face his company. "I do not understand what you mean. Enlighten me."

"Oh, well, um, perhaps I- I shouldn't have mentioned- I mean, if it's true you don't remember, then maybe it's best we just, ah, forget it ever happened." Now it was Leonardo's turn to fluster and determine the intriguing aspects of the carpet beneath him.

"I want to know. Leonardo, you said I did not wish to meet you again? Why did I say that?"

Fantastic. So much for all the effort put into keeping hostility from the atmosphere.

"Well... I... Cannot be _entirely_ certain, but I believe it had something to do with... Ah, you did not appreciate my comment about the Assassins' Order, and well, if you recall, you... in a way... told me very effectively that I was not to run into you again. _Mi dispiace._ You were completely right to do, em, as you did, seeing as just previously I remember punching you in the back, and surely that-"

"Stop."

Ezio watched the artist fumble over words, watched him attempting to formulate the scenario into something kinder and more agreeable. He then shifted marginally closer to the other man, gripping his right side near the old entry wound of the arrow, releasing all the care he had to hide the lingering pain crawling through his being.

"_Amico mio_, did- was this in front of the guards who began questioning you?"

"Um, yes Ezio, it was just before you ran to the roofs." He fixated on the hand clenching the assassin's side, grateful for somewhere else to deposit his attention while Ezio honed in on the correct scene.

At once his eyes flashed with concern. As if without his knowing, he shook his head and attached his free hand to Leonardo's arm. "_Dio mio _no—what did you take me to intend?"

"I- Um. You- You were explicit enough, I suppose..." Leonardo would not meet the man, but Ezio kept rigid contact with his eyes.

"Leonardo, I would _never, never _threaten you. I thought you had caught on! I meant it to look to the guards as if I was uninvited to your home! I wanted them to believe that I followed you after we ran into one another out somewhere else in the city, so that they would not suspect you to be in connection with me. It was to appear that I came to punish you for some insignificant offense; they already think me a murderer. I tried to _protect_ you!" As he explained, a sadness filled his voice. Ezio had always been comforted by the idea that Leonardo was one of the rare few who were above his threatening appearance, someone who could always see through his intimidating guise and eternally recognize him for the human underneath the unfeeling machine. To hear that this conception was wrong... It felt like the mystical air of sanctuary had somehow been lifted, driven away from the artist's tiny _bottega. _That was not a feeling that Ezio was confident he could cope with.

Leonardo was wholly convinced of this account, for the desperation with which it was carried could be sensed even without the words. He did not perceive, however, the buried roots that brought them with such sorrow. "Oh... Ezio I am so sorry. I didn't think of it that way," he responded, reciprocating the weight of seriousness. But it did not matter. Nothing Leonardo could say would be able to change the fact that he was not the impervious symbol of solace that Ezio needed him to be.

The assassin could forget himself, allow himself to be consumed in the predator-prey reality that sifts him from the rest of society. He could earnestly believe, when he needed to, that he was nothing more than a moulded and preened bringer of death for the divine cause. In those moments he could dismiss himself as frivolous if he pitied himself for losing the life and people he had, in order to truly become one with the wind, the blade, the blood. He let himself be _l'assassino_, and nothing more. All of this, so long as he was sure that his humanity was safe, stored away but still existent, able to be embraced back into this pristine, hollow shell when he could finally let his guard down.

But he was foolish. Selfish, ungrateful, greedy. He had never asked Leonardo to be this all-important keeper. He assumed. Assumed because he so wanted to believe. The Order was no haven; it idealized the inhuman form, and Ezio willingly provided for it. The remnants of his family needed protection; to lay down his armour near them would be to condemn them like the rest he could not save. As it were, Leonardo shone through unequivocally. There were times when Ezio made use of his reserved skill set for the artist, but never did he receive the intuitive, primal sense of urgency and vigilance that commanded his mind otherwise. Leonardo was too wise, too finely tuned to the element of human spirit to be susceptible to Ezio's other self. It was that knowledge that reassured him that the "other self" was not yet the only "self" he had.

So now he was alone. He knew it would have been painful, for a while, to extract himself from their relationship as planned, but it would have been bearable. Leonardo would no longer be there to pour life back into Ezio's cold persona, but it would be enough knowing there existed a person who could—knowing that it was possible to return, no matter how far the distance between them. Having now revealed that all along there _was _no such angelic bearer of life, Ezio was either to have a soul communicable to no one, or to release the notion of a soul altogether. In a strange way he expected this destiny, through some otherworldly sense he did not understand. But he resisted it. With all the might in his being he held on to the belief that he could remain, even in a small way, part of the world he gave himself to protect. Perhaps he was naïve. There was no question the Order would tell him so. He stared into Leonardo's hand without seeing. He did not notice how tightly he squeezed it with both of his own. The pad of his right thumb scrubbed itself back and forth over Leonardo's knuckles.

"...What is wrong?" was all that the artist could think to ask when he could gain nothing informative from the assassin's uncanny behaviour. His hand was not held in the light, caring way of romance; it was strangled like a last resort for survival.

The question revived Ezio's senses, but at first he could not speak. How could he begin to explain the complicated role that he construed for his oldest friend? And further, how could he describe how Leonardo had failed to fulfill a role he did not take? There was no room for anger, not disappointment nor guilt. Yes, at this point even the vastness of guilt that the assassin felt toward Leonardo was pale in comparison to the fear and loss he experienced. It was why he continued to clutch the man's hand.

"I thought...," he croaked, trying to gather some coherent pieces of explanation.

"Yes?" Leonardo encouraged, leaning toward Ezio to show the sincerity in his interest.

"...I... did not know... that I could frighten you."

To anyone else, the words might have been extraordinarily lacking in the emotion that belied them. It was testament to the strength of bond between the two that Leonardo's polished perceptual abilities paired so well with Ezio, whose disposition was to stifle his complex, internal battles. Clearly it was more than just "disconcerting" to him, that Leonardo was intimidated that day. But this was not a reaction borne out of shame; Ezio seemed genuinely afraid that he was capable of intimidating the artist—so much so that the obsessive motion of his thumb over Leonardo's hand was suddenly reminiscent of the same kind of pacing, prodding habits exhibited earlier when he attempted to recount the grotesque incident of last month. Things started to fall into place in Leonardo's mind with startling accuracy. Before he could address his hypothesis verbally, however, the assassin spoke.

"Please, Leonardo. I know I ask_ far_ too much of you. But I- just _please. Please_ do not be afraid of me," he plead, gaining confidence through desperation as he spoke, "I am—_ti prego—_You- you mean very, _very _much to me, _sinceramente_, and I cannot... _Please _do not think of me in this way, Leonardo. You are the only one who does not. You are- without you I have...," he trailed, imitating the same, slight, unintended shake of his head as before.

His theory was confirmed then. Leonardo had long worried that he was the only person for whom Ezio would lower his hood. And the act was deeply symbolic, as he always expected.


	12. Chapter 12

"I do not fear you," he began. Ezio latched on to each and every word. "I concede that there are times when you do appear to be... less approachable, shall we say, but I believe that is simply your nature. As it should be! Considering your work, that is. The mere fact that I have been affected by it does not mean that is all I see in you. Rest assured, my friend," he said, pausing to set his free hand upon Ezio's shoulder, "that I will always be here to provide for you a place of repose. In whatever form that may take."

For all his anticipation, Ezio was underwhelmed. To him it was not clear that Leonardo fully understood his position. Despite the inadequacy, however, Leonardo yet possessed the ability to calm the assassin to rational speaking terms, if only through his soothing aura and not his speech.

"...I appreciate the gesture. More than you know, I expect. But... Still it is best that you resume your life in my absence. It is not right of me to think of your home as mine; it never has been. ...I should have admitted this years ago to save you the obligation. And you see, from our separation, I benefit as well. As you say, it is my nature to repel. I agree with that. It is not within my nature to participate in a domestic life. I would do well to accept this and leave you to your own devices." He nodded, as if the action would solidify the foundations of his argument for him.

The resilience Ezio showed was actually gladdening, to Leonardo, for he would have been most suspicious to have seemingly quelled the entire month's worth of strife in one act. Healing over this gap would, and ought to, require a new bridge at some axiomatic level of their friendship. As a result, Leonardo remained patient. Patient, but not patronizingly so, he was cautious to maintain.

"Ezio. I have provided my care to you for all these years _because_ of who you are. I do not keep you because I feel _obligated_ at all; trust me on this, Ezio. I have great sympathy for the trials you have endured—though I would not be so sure I can fully understand them. I aid you for this, but more so because I think of you as my closest friend. No one truly chooses their friends out of sympathy, you know. Not for so long as we have known each other. It is because I enjoy who you are that you are my friend, and it is because you are my friend that I believe you deserve better than what you go through as _un assassino_."

As a measure of his success, his hand was granted release enough into a tender hold. Ezio at last looked away. He shifted where he sat, numbly fiddling his fingers across Leonardo's palm. If what he heard was true, if he really trusted Leonardo, then just maybe... The subsided guilt suddenly cascaded over him: assuming it was no lie that Leonardo honestly cared for the assassin—no, cared for _Ezio—_then this was worse than constantly endangering some generous, innocent inventor; their years spent together, risking Leonardo's life by association, were as good as recklessly dangling the most genuine person he's known in front of the clutches of death—or worse.

It seemed that however the situation was reasoned, the solution rounded back to the same place.

"If one of us deserves better treatment, Leonardo, it is you. The whole of Venezia deserves better. _Mia familia _deserved better. You must understand, that while I am disconnected from all of these people, including you, _amico mio_, I am able to bring you all closer to the lives you deserve. The creed of the Order explains how we are to achieve good for the majority by removing ourselves from it. You are our valuable confidant, but in expecting from you anything more than that, I damage both you and the creed. I am sorry, I-"

Leonardo opened his mouth to interrupt (this stupid nonsense again, of uncritical obedience to the Order), but was caught by surprise when instead Ezio chose to assert the sternness in his decision. Finally taking a hand to himself, he gripped the left of Leonardo's jaw, and held it level with his own.

"People like you are too rare in this world to be held back by the burdens people like me would impose upon you. I know you do not think me a burden. I trust that you do not lie. That is _precisely_ why I must remain _l'assassino_ to you from now on," he expounded, "Because you do not deserve the risk that comes with any other affiliation." _I do not deserve you._

At first the intimacy was... unsettling, to say the least, but the more Ezio explained, the more icy became Leonardo's nerves. He raised an eyebrow to accentuate the offense he took by the end.

"Ezio, _really now._ Be rational, for once. Do you think me so flawless that I am fragile? Perhaps I could not hold my own in a fight as well as you and your kind, but the common prospect of risk is absolutely _no_ reason to just-" he threw his hands up a ways in frustration, simultaneously loosing himself from Ezio's lingering touches, "-just _abandon_ any relationship between us! The protection you offer balances any adverse 'risk' you might carry. In fact, I think your inclination to protect me might outweigh the risk. You are simply exaggerating the issue at hand here—and another thing, where did you get the idea that I would rather you leave than accept a small amount of personal danger for your company? Let us end this pointless bantering. I would argue that it is what motivated your decision to leave in such an ill condition the last time you were here. The facts of the matter are plain: I care for you, Ezio. You are my friend. I value our time together much more than I would the thought that you are out somewhere, in one abused state or another, thinking you make the world a better place by isolating yourself from it. Things are not so black and white, I'm afraid, and I wish you would stop trying to force them to be."

Ezio was nothing if not stubborn. He sat facing Leonardo, but then turned toward the fire with a crease to his brow. The artist seemed to address each item of concern with impressive logic, but Ezio had always put faith in his instincts, and right now they told him to stand firm in his convictions. ...Then again, his instincts had also led him to excruciating near-death experiences involving flinging himself off a rooftop in more than one occasion—certain _recent_ instances came to mind in a mental field of blood and plumy, dusty squalour. Where the quiet would have been seized by the assassin to refute, Leonardo took the opportunity first.

"...I'm sorry. I apologize. I should have said this earlier, important as it was to have started all this... I want you to know that you do not have to live only as an assassin. If nowhere else, then at least with me. Even if you do not see the importance in this, I do. Are you listening to me? Ezio you _need_ to have people in your life who exist in ways that do not require your constant protection. It cannot be against the creed to allow oneself a degree of humanity. I mean, deductively, the creed must have originated from someone with an understanding of the human limits, for that person to have advised against them. Now, I mean no hostility toward the creed, its followers, or its makers. I don't even claim to speak of it with the knowledge of one who has learned it with proper training. But there is a logical pattern to every tick of the world, and this is no exception. I think, based upon my previous deduction, that the truest comprehension of what is required by your Order, is to both know what it is to love that part of you which is restricted to the virtues of the human soul, and to know what it is to venture beyond. I think that separation of the two is not only a misreading, but it is impossible."

The flames fluttered in Ezio's contemplative, narrowed vision. He brought his knees up a ways so that he could rest his elbows on them while at the same time keeping his arms crossed. He was never a particularly philosophically gifted man, but he believed he understood the general idea of Leonardo's characterization of the creed. It was conflicting, though: Leonardo was not an assassin. The creed, manifest by extracting oneself from the human essence, was something experienced. The words were only a signpost. Yet the way that the artist could decode them was not dissimilar to the writings of ancient and accomplished assassins themselves. It felt wrong, in a way, to be tossing such a subject around. The words had a sacred, unquestionable air to them. Debating them in his head, Ezio felt somewhat guilty. Maybe this was what the faithful Catholics felt like for skipping a confession.

"I think I see what you are saying."

Leonardo waited for him to elaborate, but he only concentrated on the embers rolling into in the hearth, like some vigilant prison guard.

"...You do?" he prompted.

"I do. I think. But... It is not how the assassins alive today would have it."

"I have always thought that most people of the modern day could do with a bit of reflection. Tradition is so easily warped over a short period of time, counterintuitive as that may sound. People reshape their gods to resemble what the current era finds acceptable. So too I believe that the assassins are subject to changing their ways to suit the circumstances. Em-" he startled, "I mean, it is a natural occurrence. I do not mean to say that the assassins are... inconsistent."

"No, I understand."

"Oh."

"...In wishing to abandon you, I blindly follow what has been shown to me. The greater assassins who came before us would forge ways of their own. You are right, Leonardo. The creed does not create a mould for me, or anyone else to fill. It is meant to guide one's thoughts, but in direction, and not in result. It is... ...I guess it is easier, for me to be consumed in the role that I know. You have shown me that it is against my own beliefs to allow that."

Time passed. Leonardo cautiously watched Ezio work in silence, the meditation of the assassin. After a while that neither man could quantify, Ezio expired in a fatigued sigh, and gently let himself down to lay on his good side. The rug was new; still soft and plush.

"You will ever be a better person than I am, _compadre_. If you learned to fight one of these days, I have no doubts that Italia would crumble in your wake. Peacefully, of course," he joked. He closed his eyes.

Leonardo cracked a smile. This was victory. Ezio would stay. He had a difficult time quashing his desire to throw his arms around the other man in celebration.

"Better? You think so? Do not depreciate yourself so quickly, my friend. You possess several qualities I myself do not, nor do most men."

With a smirk, Ezio rolled to his back and attempted to shove off his left greave with his right foot.

"I mean _aside_ from the killing and the running."

"No!" Leonardo retorted with a chuckle, and laid himself down too. "You are uncommonly determined, which is most evident..."

Ezio snorted, grinning.

"You are cleverer than you believe yourself, too."

"A pitiful comment from _un genio_."

"And we can safely agree that you are _quite _adventurous."

Leonardo found it adorable, though a tad concerning, that Ezio tried to stifle his laughter with a tense arm around his bandaged ribs.

"You are exceptionally dedicated, something which freely becomes irritating rather than admirable. And you see, there is companionship where we each lack some qualities that the other has in spades. Despite the nuisance, I find yours are all very attractive— ah, I- I-i-in a friendly sort of way, I mean of course."

He felt infinite relief looking over to see Ezio serenely lying on his back, arm draped over his concealed, prone form, half asleep with a smile on his face. Leonardo decided it was a good time for him to do the same, lest he continue to run off inadvertent love notes in jubilation.

Once his eyes were shut, the assassin turned his head and opened his own. The exchange was not coincidental—something unnameable had always allowed him to sense the level of awareness in others. He could not pinpoint the exact feeling that drove him to cherish the warm, content form beside him, but he watched Leonardo, for no distinguishable reason, and felt the childlike urge to prod him—just to see him wake up. But he would not. It was vastly more rewarding to observe him in his tranquility, a setting that perfectly matched the feeling Ezio imagined he would lose for the rest of his life only minutes ago. The _bottega _did nothing of its own to generate this aura of sanctuary, he realized. All of the holy affects of the place were inextricably tied to the source himself, lying so quiet and nonviolent closeby. Ezio was grateful, at last, and not indebted. However, there was something more than that. "Grateful" did not seem to describe his feelings toward the artist in the bright, significant, unidentified manner he pictured it would.

He thought on this. He thought long and deeply, scrutinizing the projects within the studio by habit just for a place to put his eyes. He contemplated the nature of his work, the meanings and origins behind the ethics he was raised with—both in this life, and the one he had before. He contemplated how it could be that everything seemed so different around Leonardo. He tried to imagine how he might arrive at that grand understanding, the harmonious middle ground between assassin and man. It could have been hours he lay thinking. However long it really was, it was much too long for Leonardo to remain conscious. And soon, Ezio was beginning to wear thin his ability to formulate worthwhile thoughts. The scar stretching over his lips was red and mildly swollen from continuous, absent chewing. Negligible sounds had become distracting over time, and it was the dull shift of cloth to his left that finally brought his attention to the ludicrous hour of the night that it was. Gently he extended a hand out and rocked Leonardo's shoulder. The groggy petulance with which the man stirred brought a smile to Ezio's face.

"Leonardo. Wake up."

Reluctantly, he did.

"...What? What is-" he began, looking to the windows of his studio to find them inky and barely visible in outline.

"You should go sleep in your bed. I should... May I stay the remainder of the night in here?"

In his full capacities, Leonardo might have recognized the request as the significant change that it was. Unfortunately, in his state, he simply found it outrageous that Ezio would even ask.

"Wh- Ezio, of _course _you can stay here. Considering all I thought we accomplished in the last...," he whined, waving his hands lifelessly and trying to recall how long it had been since the pair was awake and speaking, "...However many hours—you know what I mean. I don't want you feeling like you need to ask my permission for things like this."

While Leonardo was visibly irritated (though more likely from a rude awakening than anything else), Ezio couldn't help but laugh at him. He dismissed his friend with a downcast wave of his arm, and stood to go find a more suitable sleeping spot himself. Or at least, he would have, if upon his attempt he did not wince and halt at the tearing, stabbing sensation that stole through his spine and abdomen.

"A-I- ...I th-ink, I will stay here on- ...On the rug. If you don't mind," he gritted out.

Leonardo was close by his side before he had fully set himself back down. Ezio propped himself up off the ground with his elbows such that his upper back was free from contact. He felt Leonardo's hand settle softly upon his uninjured shoulder. Wide awake now, his face was full of worry.

"Are you all right? Tell me what is wrong. There haven't been any complications to your injuries, have there?"

"Ah... Um- no."

To Leonardo this would assuredly sound like a poorly executed lie. But the reality was, that just in that moment, something clicked in Ezio's mind. The thought was so monumental, his speech could not meet its caliber. It must have been a thousand times he'd heard those caring words from Leonardo. Yet here and now, they illuminated that confounding, ambiguous feeling that Ezio had wanted to call mere gratitude. Leonardo's compassion was so easily discovered, so naked in its honesty, and what was more, it always had been. And suddenly Ezio felt ashamed, that one as trained as himself in apprehending the undetectable could fail to notice the signs. Immune to everything save the revelation that shook him, he did not realize that he interrupted Leonardo's half-hearted lecture when he at last found his voice.

"Leonardo, do you love me?"

He froze. If any hint of sleepiness dwelt in him to this point, it vanished in an instant, leaving nothing but cold panic in its wake. The room seemed to flip upside down. Leonardo prayed it would, damn every last delicate project he had if it would provide a suitable mess of debris to hide behind. How on _earth _could he let this happen? This was it. Ezio had finally put it all together, bless his oblivious soul, and all they had just surmounted was going to fall apart because Leonardo had been too careless. He _knew _that Ezio's heart was stringently restricted to the opposite sex. And now that he was definitely aware of what Leonardo felt for him, a canyon was about to open up between them both and that was going to be the undeniable, irreparable end. In a desperate clamour the artist rummaged through the whole of the contents in his head to find some fast, miraculous way to stow Ezio's question.

"W-well, Ezio. That's- um," he paused, searching again for something to say that was less so akin to gibberish, "I-I mean I- you- I think you have m-many, uh, admirable qualities. A-as I've said before. But- And it's- well I mean, after having spent so many years knowing you... Um, I- I wouldn't say I... Necessarily... Em..."

"I see." Ezio nodded seriously, as if he was learning of a grave political situation he was about to become part of. "Say no more. Think no more of it. I am sure that we are both very tired, and this has been a long night. I will be fine on my own, so you should go on to your bed and we can meet each other in the morning."

Only about a third of what Ezio responded with made it to Leonardo's ears. It was perhaps the artist's most fortunate trait, his ability to turn to reason in the face of disaster: _What in the world did I just say, _he asked himself in the midst of Ezio making excuses for them both. This scenario was nearly exactly what Leonardo had been dreaming of for what felt like millennia, and for whatever idiotic reason he had decided to shove it aside. _The man is obviously disappointed. It cannot have been pure suspicion that drove him to ask_, he rationalized. Now it was Leonardo's turn to interrupt. If there was any truth to the excuses Ezio was finishing, it was that this was proving to be a most taxing night indeed.

"Yes," he said hastily, "Ezio stop. Yes, Ezio, I do love you."

And Ezio obeyed. There was a maddening silence while Ezio read the authenticity in Leonardo's eyes, but once he was satisfied, a small smile curled at the corners of his mouth.

"...Oh. Good."

He couldn't believe it. Leonardo couldn't _believe _that he didn't expect that response. Without fail, Ezio Auditore would _always _take delicate moments like these, and drop them right on the ground. A strange kind of fury built itself up inside Leonardo, awkwardly singeing away at the fluttering feeling of admitting one's long withheld love. It churned in conflict while he tried the task to reconcile both feelings into words. It was enough time spent for Ezio to shift his weight around just so, so that he could succeed when he reached over, caught Leonardo behind the neck, and pulled him to himself into a deep, sorely needed kiss.

The mind ventures to unusual places when presented with absurdity. Near death, those who escape will recount themselves in those moments thinking of things mundane, nonsensical, or irrelevant. With Ezio's lips pressed on his, Leonardo appreciated the fact that he could feel the other man's scar. Barely, only if he thought about it, but he could. He always wondered if he would. And it was over as abruptly as it had initiated.

He sat back, arched oddly in the way that he had been forced down to meet his lover. The smug, delighted look on Ezio's face rescued him from his dumb blinking and at once his own face flushed with colour. Ezio snickered. Ezio shouldn't snicker at things like this. Despite himself Leonardo wrinkled his brow in disapproval, but before he made his point further he was pummeled to the ground with little resistance by the strong arms around him. Ezio was determined to weasel each of his limbs—even the ones that hurt the most—under or over Leonardo's. Quite literally wrapped in his enthusiasm, Leonardo had to join in with the laughter. He wanted to scold the assassin, for he was sure that anywhere he would find to grab in return would cause agonizing pain. But he could not bring himself to do it. Once they were thoroughly entangled, Ezio rested his head (most uncomfortably) in the space between Leonardo's neck and chest. There he indulged for a time, simply happy to breathe in the familiar scents that lulled him to sleep on his worst days. But before he would entirely allow himself to drift asleep in this fantasy, he thought it appropriate to let Leonardo know.

"I apologize for waking you up earlier. You may sleep now," he mumbled with a stupid grin. He very well knew that soft as the new rug was, the pair's current position was anything but sleep-able.

"Am I given permission now? Because if you observe, I cannot escape this to save my life."

"Precisely."

The morning greeted them yet lying together among the intricate reds and whites, cozily strewn about one another but no less tangled.

-_ End _-


End file.
